


Taken

by Akamaimom



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 76,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4823321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akamaimom/pseuds/Akamaimom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glinda Baldrich has decided to stay on as Jack O'Neill's secretary. She might be regretting that decision, however. After a seemingly innocent lunch date with Jack's wife at a shopping center, Glinda wakes up disoriented, bound, and frightened in a dark room. Who would have kidnapped her? Who is in the room with her? And how will she make it back to her post at the Pentagon? A Glinda/Sam adventure. Minor Sam whump. Fits within the Secretarial Pool/Little Legume of Hope story arc, so reading those two stories first would be helpful. Originally published between April and June 2010 on another archive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Darkness

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Darkness_ **

 

 

What in heaven’s name had been in that salad?

Chicken. Rough chopped Iceberg Lettuce. A smattering of tiny little tomatoes. Cheddar cheese. Slices of hard-boiled egg.

Croutons— _those_ she’d shunted off to the side of her plate.  Croutons were nothing more than salty, stale bread.  Like raisins were nothing more than desiccated grapes.  Anyone who would think that food well past its prime was desirable lived in a totally different sphere than did Glinda Baldrich. She preferred her food _fresh_ , thank you very much.  And preferably not semi-decayed. 

Shredded carrots.

Cucumber slices.

Red onion.

She should have relegated the onion to the side of the plate with the croutons. Red onion had never really agreed with her—she’d had a bad experience once with some during a romantic evening with Bruce Gillinsby.  After having consumed just such a salad as the one currently in question, she’d experienced a bit of—shall we say— _re-familiarity_ with the red onion. 

Glinda had burped. 

But burping was a far cry from this current crisis. 

She’d awoken prone—lying on her back, to be exact.  All around her, darkness—and silence.  At first there had been the noise of a car, and traffic, but that had long-since stopped. She thought that she had lost consciousness again, and now all she could hear was an eerie silence, punctuated with infrequent and unidentifiable bursts of muffled noise, besides the faint noises that she herself emitted. 

And someone else’s breathing.  Glinda felt certain that she had not ended up in this blackness alone.

Something underneath her poked persistently in her right side, and her hands had been secured together with a stiff plastic band of some sort. Her bare feet had long since gone to sleep, and dollars to donuts her hose had run.

She tried to shift, but found that movement proved difficult and painful with her hands bound and the bulky lump pressing into her back. Scooting a little to the left helped to relieve the pressure on her ribcage, but then her feet awakened, and Glinda fought against the urge to gasp when the prickly tingles started to stab at her heels.  Biting her lip, she squeezed her eyes shut, clamping her mouth closed, as well.  She would survive. 

She was the administrative secretary to the General in charge of Homeworld Security—what were a few tingles when in comparison with total global annihilation?

Few women were constructed of stronger stuff than Glinda Baldrich! Steeling her resolve, she lifted her chin.  What would General O’Neill do?

Knowing the man as well as she’d come to, Glinda admitted with a small sigh that he would most likely make a joke out of the whole fiasco. And then he would get free. And he would probably hurt some people. Glinda knew this to be true—she’d read his file.

But as unexpectedly talented as Glinda had proven to be in her seniors’ karate class at the YMCA, she still doubted her ability to do the sort of damage to her captors that would precipitate their releasing her. So, unless she suddenly found the ability to unleash the hounds of hell in a roundhouse kick like her instructor had demonstrated, she felt less than able to acquit herself remarkably in that regard.

She could not see well enough to even know what obstacles lay in her path—she could not move enough to free herself.  She’d taken a self-defense class once with her church women’s group, and her instructor had stated that one should not act until one knew _how_ to act.

And Glinda knew precisely nothing about where or with whom she currently was being held.  She only knew that she’d stepped off the elevator after a particularly lovely lunch with the affable and gracious Colonel Carter, and been met by pain and an odd flash of blue.

As quietly as she could, she took a deep cleansing breath, blowing out slowly through her mouth.

She needed to relax.  A tense mind was not an ordered one.  Preparation started with clear thoughts.

Lying as still as possible, Glinda forced herself to focus on something other than her predicament.  She hoped that would help her remain calm and collected.  Her brain rifled through possible topics of thought until it came to the perfect one.

She needed a binding for the General’s quilt.

The green log cabin quilt had grown—as quilts tended to do around Glinda. Instead of the nice throw sized piece that she’d intended, she’d found herself continuing to make blocks until it had morphed into a king-sized behemoth.  Surreptitious queries had ascertained the fact that the General and his wife did indeed share a king-sized bed.  And really, Glinda hadn’t been surprised by that. Obviously, the two of them needed a wide expanse in which to—she carefully chose the most delicate of the phrases that sprang into her mind— _recline_. Both of them being tall, she reasoned, and athletic.

But she digressed.

Binding. The beast—er—quilt—had ended up measuring one hundred and ten inches square.  Glinda closed her eyes and began the mental math—she’d always enjoyed this particular process.  The figures marched in orderly rows in her imagination.  One hundred and ten multiplied by four sides—four hundred and forty, plus ten inches for mitered corners, equaled four hundred and fifty inches. The average piece of fabric measured forty usable inches across, so she would need twelve strips sewn together to attain that length.  After deciding that she would use a low loft batting, she opted for a two and a quarter inch wide strip, so twelve multiplied by two and a quarter meant that she would need twenty-seven inches of fabric from which to cut her strips, so she rounded that up to an even yard.  Then she’d have a little bit to put back into her fabric stash.

She was in the process of envisioning the exact color of green to buy when she heard a change in the breathing of the other person with her in the darkness.

It was a hitch—as if the person had suddenly come into consciousness.

Glinda lay as still as possible, listening intently.  The other person moved something—an arm, perhaps, or a leg, or maybe just shifted, but the movement was muffled by something—carpeting perhaps? Or a rug.  Glinda tried to concentrate on where her bare feet—no longer tingling—rested on the floor.  Soft—she dug her heel in slightly and felt some give.  Carpeting with a pad underneath.  Not an office or a hotel.  A residence of some sort.

“Glinda?”

The whisper barely registered in Glinda’s ears, but she recognized the voice. The relief that flooded through her was immense.  “Colonel Carter?” She knew her voice rang out too loudly, but she found herself woefully unable to control it.

Filled with concern, the other woman’s voice sounded again.  “Are you okay?”

“I think so, Colonel. I’m tied up.”

“So am I.”  A short pause was punctuated by movement.  The Colonel shifted positions, and Glinda heard the younger woman groan.  “They always get you when you’re not expecting it.”

“Who?”

“Who, what?”

“Who got us?”

After a brief silence, and a little more shifting, the Colonel spoke again, her voice tight.  “I’m not sure—I was talking bad guys in general.  Not in specific terms.”

“Might I ask what happened?”

After a brief moment, the Colonel’s voice wafted quietly back towards Glinda. “How much do you remember?”

She reflected.  Rolling back over the events of the day, she recalled arriving at the Pentagon, putting on a fresh pot of coffee, filing reports.  She had been in the process of sending an e-mail on That Infernal Contraption when the Colonel had arrived with an impromptu lunch invitation.  “A salad.  The restaurant. We were leaving it. Your car was parked around the corner in a parking garage.  We took the elevator, and stepped out into the basement area.  Then I felt a pain and everything went black. 

“A blue light.”

“Yes—I recall that.  It went with the pain.” Glinda frowned. It had been a singularly unpleasant experience.  Like sticking one’s moistened finger in a light socket, she imagined, although she never had been simple enough to do such a thing.

“Zats.” The Colonel breathed out heavily. “They used zats.”

“Whats?”

“Zats. Zat’ni’katels. They’re an alien kind of weapon. One shot stuns, the next immediate shot thereafter kills.”

Glinda nodded, more to herself than to her companion, then remembered that she had once filed a report about something by that name. “They are used by the ‘Go-a-oold’.”

She sensed the other woman smiling, and then heard it in her voice. “Goa’uld.  Yeah.  And by the people who used to be their foot soldiers, the Jaffa.”

“The General’s friend.”  Glinda reached into her memory and brought forward a name she’d heard several times. “Teal’c.”

“And mine.  And yes, Teal’c is Jaffa.”

“Does it always cause victims to lose consciousness?”

“To some extent, yes.  Usually.”

“Did you just now come to?”

A pause, then the Colonel sighed.  “A few minutes ago.  It always seems to take me the longest.”

“You’ve been—zat-gunned before?”

“Many times.  I’ve been zatted many times.”

A thought occurred to Glinda.  “Colonel, your baby—how—”

But a quick, stilted noise cut her off.  She waited through an impossibly long silence before the Colonel spoke.

“Please, Glinda—I can’t think about that right now.”  And in the Colonel’s tone was the tiniest note of pleading, the barest hint of a tremble.

In the darkness, Glinda squinted, then opened her eyes wide, but to no avail. No light penetrated wherever it was they were being held.  “Do you have any idea where we are, Colonel Carter?”

“Glinda, please call me Sam.”  There was no hint of impatience in her voice.  Just a degree of resignation.  “Certain experiences require people to use each other’s first names.”

“Very well, Colonel.”  Glinda nodded again. Then felt her cheeks redden when she recalled that the Colonel couldn’t see the gesture.  “I shall if you shall.”

“I think I already have been, haven’t I?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

And Glinda couldn’t quite believe it when the Colonel snorted, and then chuckled.

“Ma’am?”

After a moment, Sam let out a long breath.  “I’m sorry, Glinda, it just reminds me of the first few months after Jack and I got married.  I kept calling him ‘sir’. It was such a habit for me. I still do it from time to time.”

“Because you were in his chain of command for several years before your respective transfers.”

“Yes.” And her voice had changed to something more poignant—sweeter—than it had been before.  “Eight years.  We knew each other very well before we were able to get married.  It was a long time.”

And somehow Glinda was absolutely certain that Sam was grateful for the darkness that surrounded them and hid all signs of emotion.  For in those words resided far more meaning than the words actually said. 

Glinda could practically see the history—the years when their attraction had needed to be quelled, to be subjugated in favor of duty and honor. She had seen a hint of that yearning. In the beginning of her time with General O’Neill, previous to the Colonel’s return from her assignment, Glinda had caught it on the General’s face as he’d stared at the single picture he had in his office.  Now there was another picture stuck in that photo’s frame—a black and white ultrasound still. Not that Glinda could make heads or tails of it—no matter how many times she studied the print-out, the figure on it still seemed like a lima bean.

“Too long.” The Colonel’s voice shushed through the dark—an afterthought—one of those moments when the summation of the story contained all the truth of it

Nothing could possibly be said to answer that, so the secretary shifted again on the bulge in her back, and pressed her heels again into the carpet, trying to prevent her legs from falling asleep again.  The small movement felt comforting—as if she were doing something useful. Glinda appreciated the joy in being proactive.

As if she had been reading Glinda’s thoughts, and perhaps in an attempt to change the subject, Sam spoke again.  “Try to move around as much as you can.  You need to stay as limber as possible.”

“I have been.  I can’t move much—I’m lying down and there is something under my back.”  She shifted again, but couldn’t dislodge herself from the bulge. “I feel somewhat high-centered. Like a low rider on a speed bump.”

“I was lying down, too.  But I was able to sit up.”  Glinda heard a shifting again—fabric rubbing against fabric.  “I think I’m leaning up against a couch.  At least, the fabric feels like upholstery.”

Imagining this, Glinda scowled.  “Your hands are fastened behind your back?”

“Unfortunately.” Another sound of movement, something rubbed against a hard surface.  “I think that they’re zip ties—at least it feels like it around my ankles. Are your legs bound?”

Glinda experimented.  “No. But my shoes are gone.”

“Mine, too.”

A thought occurred to her.  “My purse. I think I’m lying on my purse.”

“Stay on it.”  The Colonel spoke quickly. She’d gone from comforting to tactical within a heartbeat.  “It may come in handy later, and if they left it when they left us, chances are they don’t realize that you even have it.”

Glinda experimented with a small shoulder roll.  “The strap is still over my shoulder.”

“Good—like I said.  Don’t bring attention to it, if at all possible.”  The Colonel’s voice carried a good amount of authority to it.  Glinda could well imagine her commanding a vessel the size of the Hammond.  “Are you scared?”

“Of course I am, Colonel.”

“You’re doing well hiding it.  Whoever has us will admire that, so maintain that bravado, please.”

“I’ll try.”

From far away came a noise, and Glinda found herself straining to place it, to hear it better.  Doors. Doors were opening and closing, and at least two pairs of footsteps echoed in the distance. 

She tried to say something, but opened her mouth only to emit a strange, embarrassing squeak.

“I hear them, too, Glinda.  Stay calm, please, and let me do the talking.”

“Okay.” And her voice came out just a tidge shrill—her fright showing more than she’d intended. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Sam.”

But the footsteps grew ever closer, and Glinda’s heart beat too loudly for comfort.  She breathed deeply and tried to focus.

She closed her eyes and imagined tiles.  Seven of them, with random letters.  Started to arrange them into words.  Fought against shame as a wave of hysteria threatened to flood over her and she couldn’t remember the letters.  So she concentrated on the carpet beneath her heels, and lying as inconspicuously as possible, and hiding the purse beneath her body. And breathing.

And trusting the savvy, experienced woman sitting with her in the blackness to know exactly how to deal with people who would use a weapon on women exiting an elevator after a casual lunch of big salads.

The footsteps stopped nearby.  And a new sound filtered through a wall—buttons of some sort—like clicks on a keyboard—and an alien, electronic tone.

And then light seemed to flood the room as a door slid aside. Craning her neck to the right, Glinda blinked against the brightness, watching as three men entered the room. Two of them stopped at the doorway while the third sauntered in further, an ungracious, smug grin on his otherwise handsome face.  Elegantly suited, his dark hair meticulously groomed, his facial hair trimmed around lips that seemed created for the sneer that twisted them.

Glinda heard Colonel Carter let out a short, pained groan, and she turned her head in time to see the younger woman close her eyes, watch as her lips tightened.

“Colonel Carter.”  The well suited man spoke in a voice that carried an accent of some sort.  “How kind of you to join me.  I have been waiting for the pleasure of your company for ever so long.”

Sam expression eased into a pained smile—a smile that did not reach her vivid, intelligent eyes.  “What do you want?”

“Who says I desire anything other than the company of an old friend?” The man’s smile turned wicked. “Sometimes those such as I become lonely and yearn for the companionship of acquaintances from years past.”

The Colonel answered as if he hadn’t spoken.  “Whatever you want—you won’t get it.”

“Really?” His eyebrows rose dramatically. “I think you’re wrong about that. I believe that once a certain General we know discovers that I have his wife, he’ll come around soon enough. I’ll get what I want.”

“You know he doesn’t negotiate.”

The man shrugged, the very picture of nonchalance.  “He knows what I am capable of doing in order to get what I require.”

Colonel Carter’s face had gone cold.  Her eyes narrowed on the man in the shaft of light.  “What do you want?”

He sounded both condescending and bored as he absently waved a hand. “An artifact.”

“Which one?”

“You let me worry about that.  For now, just stay here—relax in the comfort afforded by my hospitality.” 

Sam seemed to resign herself.  Twisting her body to one side, she said, “Okay—why don’t you untie me?”

And the man laughed, and Glinda forced back a gasp.  His eyes had flashed—as if a light had been turned on and then off in the same instant.  Her strangled sound drew his attention, however, and he side-stepped closer, studying her.

“So this is the spare.”  His dark eyes took her in, perusing her with a frankness that was less disturbing than it was plainly rude.  “And who might you be?”

“Nobody.” Carter cut in. Her voice sounded deceptively calm. “You should let her go. She has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, Colonel Carter.  I don’t think so.” Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the younger woman.  “I think we’ll just keep you both around for a while.  She may turn out to be useful." 

Sam closed her eyes, her jaw working steadily.

“So, Colonel Carter—or is it Colonel O’Neill now?  I understand it is customary on Earth for the woman to take her husband’s name.”  Upon ascertaining that Sam had no intention of answering, the man continued.  “So, Colonel, why don’t you be polite and present me to your friend?”

Slowly, the Colonel opened her eyes and lifted them to the darker ones of their captor.  Tightly, she nodded her head towards the other woman.  “This is Glinda Baldrich.”

The man inclined his head with a practiced, obsequious air. “Miss Baldrich. Such a pleasure.”

“And Glinda,” Sam hesitated, then swallowed back something—Bile? Frustration?  Anger?—before continuing with the introduction. “This is Ba’al.”


	2. Shades

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Shades_ **

 

 

“Come on, Ba’al.”  Sam shifted, lowering her chin and looking up at the Goa’uld through her eyelashes. Her pose suggested innocence, and a good deal of familiarity.  The Colonel knew this man well enough to converse freely.  “Why don’t you just tell me which artifact you’re looking for, and I’ll tell you if we’re worth enough.”

The handsome man tossed off a lazy shrug.  “I believe your husband would pay a great deal to get you back.”

“Who knows?  He may have decided by now that I’m a pain in the butt and he’d be glad to be rid of me.” The Colonel straightened as well as she could, seemingly ignoring the fact that her hands and feet remained bound with white plastic—Zip Ties—Glinda believed they were called. “You know how I can be, Ba’al, and you never know what Jack’s going to do.”

“Jack O’Neill.” The words dripped with distaste, and Glinda could have sworn that the alien’s eyes flashed again. A symptom of anger? Surely it indicated some strong surge of emotion.  A glance at the Colonel confirmed this, her eyes had narrowed under the fringe of her bangs, and her chin had set itself into a hard, unyielding line. The alien must have noticed it too, because his smirk changed into a frown.  “I still find it unbelievable that he convinced such a female as you to wed with him.  The vagaries of human emotion are indeed abhorrent.”

“You sound jealous, Ba’al.”  The Colonel smiled.  “I’m honestly not sure whether to be intrigued or disgusted by that.”

“You should feel fear.  Unless the artifact is made available to me, you will not be returned in any condition to continue to engage him in a wifely manner.  After all, I am a God.  All knowing, all powerful.”

Glinda watched as Sam cocked her head to one side, saw the depth of thought transpiring within those vivid, intelligent blue eyes.  Saw her gaze flicker for the briefest of moments to her own arm before returning to Ba’al.  “All knowing? Somehow I doubt that.”

The Goa’uld grinned wide, then, interpreting the look in a heartbeat. “Surely you don’t think that I have not considered every eventuality?  Your husband will not be able to find you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”  Sam’s words and tone had been chosen carefully.

“I have disabled the transponder.  The one currently implanted in your arm.”  He stepped closer—near enough that the Colonel had to raise her chin to see his face.  Peering down at her with hard eyes, he lifted a hand to smooth at his well-groomed beard. “I had planned to cut it out, but decided not to mar the smoothness of your skin.  It would be such a waste.  Although you are merely a female of the Taur’i, do not think that I have not always admired the—more _appreciable_ aspects of your person.”

“Oh please, Ba’al.”  Sam snorted in derision. “Niirti, maybe. I’d even believe Osiris. But surely you don’t expect me to believe that you have the hots for _me_? That’s hardly god-like—lusting after the enemy like that.”

His arm shot out before Glinda had any idea that it was intention, the back of his hand colliding with Sam’s cheek in a blazing show of brutality. Despite her determination to remain unnoticed, Glinda gasped, her bound hands rising towards her lips. She watched as Sam paused, saw her lick at the drop of blood in the corner of her mouth, saw the younger woman summon up more than mere bravado—the Colonel was now truly angry.

Their eyes met briefly as Sam worked her jaw, measuring her injury with a few subtle motions.  The message in that look forced Glinda to lower her hands, to calm her breathing. Nothing more than a miniscule raise of a single eyebrow and a subtle shake of her head had communicated to Glinda, “ _I’m okay_.” But there was a warning there, too.

“Do you doubt me now, Colonel Carter?”  Ba’al’s hands hung loose, ready, at the sides of his elegantly tailored trousers. He glowered at the blond, taking a step backwards towards the door.  “Do you doubt the seriousness of your situation?”

“I doubt your sanity.”  Sam’s tongue touched at the corner of her mouth again, but a thin trickle of blood still made its way down her chin.  “How long have you been without the sarcophagus?  As far as I know, there isn’t one on Earth right now, is there? How’s that withdrawal working for you?” She paused, and Glinda saw the alien’s face harden, saw the muscles beneath the facial hair on his jaw contract. “Or is it old age that’s making you lose your control?  You know what happened to Lord Yu.”

“Yu.” Ba’al spat out the name with the same vehemence he’d lent to the General’s.  “He was a useless relic.  Not worthy of the respect afforded him by the other System Lords.”

“The other System Lords like Ba’al, you mean.”

Glinda shuddered in the resulting silence.  It was as if the temperature of the room had dropped several degrees all at once.  Grimacing, she turned her head to see the Colonel’s gaze fixed on the alien, her right cheek an angry red, her eyes narrow and hard. 

Ba’al turned his back on them both, striding over to stand at the doorway.

“Because you don’t actually expect me to believe that you’re the real one. Which clone are you? Number eight?  Number eighty?  Or did he dispense with numbers and name you all?  What did he name you?  Larry? Moe?  No—I’ve got it—you’re Curly.”

“I am Ba’al, Colonel.”  He turned his head to glare at her over his shoulder, his hands balled into tight fists at his sides. “That is all you need to know.”

“You’re a fake.”

“And you are treading onto dangerous ground.”

“I would if you’d untie me.”

That facetious, handsome-as-sin smile emerged again, and he turned fully around, pivoting in place with a grace that seemed so much a part of him. “You’ve changed, Colonel Carter. What happened to the eager young thing so willing to work in peace at Dakara?  And you and Colonel Mitchell seemed to appreciate the help I rendered whilst finding our way through Merlin’s maze.”

Sam shrugged, although Glinda imagined that the motion could not have been comfortable. “Stuff happens.”

“O’Neill happened.”

“Why do you hate him so much?”  Sam’s voiced drifted quietly across the room.  “You’ve already had your pound of flesh from him.  Or at least, your original has.”

The conversation had turned personal—and Glinda knew that in between the looks, the exchanges of words, she was missing vast amounts of history. Information about activities and events that she almost certainly didn’t want to know.  So much of the General’s previous life was classified, and he never spoke of it—never even intimated that anything still festered beneath his casually immature surface—that there seethed a warrior within the man who periodically needed new yo-yo strings. 

How he lived with that kind of knowledge, Glinda couldn’t imagine. She turned her head to look again at the General’s wife and suddenly understood something about both of them—knew why they needed each other so intensely.

Because both of them knew.  They knew what it was like to be out there, in the galaxy.  Knew that entities such as this greasy-smooth alien with his impeccable suit and European boots existed.  Knew what he was inside.  For all these months, Glinda had possessed only a superficial knowledge of what lay beyond that strange item known as the Stargate.  But experiencing this—the superior evil exuding from this man—she barely caught herself before the tremble made its way down her spine. 

One would need to have someone with whom to share those memories. And Glinda was fairly certain that E-Harmony couldn’t possibly equate the determiner of having battled evil aliens into their match criteria.  No matter how thorough their commercials made them sound.

And if they did, it would be in order to weed out the loonies, anyway.

“I am the true Ba’al.”  Those eerie, inhuman eyes flashed brilliant again.  “And if your General O’Neill does not give me what I require, he will hate me even more. For I _will_ send you back to him, Colonel.  Only, I’ll do it one pound at a time.”

With that he pivoted, reaching the door in a few short strides.  He paused, then turned, watching the Colonel for an overlong amount of time before shifting his full attention to Glinda.

She tried not to cringe—tried to meet his gaze with the same bravery that her companion had shown.  But her position—on her back, hunched up over the bulk of her purse, looking at the man upside down, reminded her of the singularly unpleasant experience she’d had earlier in the year when her regular physician had referred her to a socially-inept gastroenterologist for a colonoscopy.  Pertinent to nothing current, she found herself suddenly remembering her conversation with her dear friend Jo Louise the following day about the experience. And now, she felt her cheeks flush pink when she recalled how she had wondered aloud if working with people’s nether regions all day made those sorts of doctors resemble them.

But this man didn’t resemble anything like unto someone’s rear end. He reminded Glinda of a snake—smooth, silent, and deadly.  And the sneer on his face distinctly unnerved her—as if he could see right through her and knew how frightened she was, and how hard she fought to keep from looking away.

She would _not_ shame the General. She was made of better, stronger, stuff than that.  She had been at the Pentagon for thirty-eight years—nearly thirty-nine!  She set her chin.  One did not survive as many generals as had she without knowing a bit about being stubborn.

“And you, Miss Baldrich.”  The Goa’uld’s tone reeked of condescension.  “Perhaps you can convince Colonel Carter to cooperate.  It would be in your best interest, as well.”

Glinda’s brows rose, her mouth tightened into a little bow. She had always been a woman proud of her ability to control her tongue.  But to have this snippy alien staring down at her—a refined woman of sixty-seven years, lying on the floor of all places, tied like a prize hog—some dam inside broke free. 

Even then, no one was as shocked as Glinda herself when she opened her mouth and snapped, “It’s quite difficult, sir, to take your threats seriously.” She stiffened, folding her hands neatly on her abdomen.  “Especially when I can see right up your nose.”

 

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

She was late. 

To O’Neill’s knowledge, Pinky had not returned to work from lunch on time exactly twice—and both of those instances were times when the office was being put to _much_ better use. He knew this for certain, because he’d been in said office.  Both times. Well, three times, if one needed to be exact about it, because one of those occurrences had been a two-fer. Sweet.

But he digressed.

He glanced at the clock and frowned.  It was after five, and his front office had sat empty since she’d carefully shut each drawer of her meticulous filing cabinets, withdrawn her purse from the bottom desk drawer where she kept it, and waved him a cheery farewell. She had an errand to run, she’d informed him first thing that morning, and might not be back directly at one.

Twenty minutes here or there, Jack didn’t really care about. Four hours, on the other hand—four hours was cause for concern.

He picked up a pen from his desk and started turning it over and over in his hands. Thinking always required fiddling. And Jack needed to think.

He’d called her cell phone.  She always had it turned on, and, because she was the most efficient person alive, the phone never ran low on juice.  He had asked her once if she had a battery pack of some sort in her purse, but she’d just smiled and shaken her curly silver head in that way of hers. That smile always made him feel as if he’d been transformed into a simple child and she’d been made his caretaker.

To be perfectly honest, that reaction from her had become the ‘norm’ in their relationship.  He’d half-decided to just give her the damned stars already, since she would have made a better General, anyway.  But he wasn’t sure exactly where she would put them on those tidy little suits she always seemed to wear. She always had some sort of frilly scarfy thing hanging or bunching or arranged around her neck that would hide them.

Perhaps she could use them as earrings.

Jack forced himself to focus, glaring out his office door into the silent front area.

Four hours.  If she’d been in an accident, someone would have called him—Sam had made certain that his number was programmed into the emergency list in Pinky’s phone. But the only call he’d received that day had been from Landry—something about the Tok’ra and that device that he’d rescued along with Daniel in South America all those years ago.

As if on cue, his office phone rang for the second time that day, and Jack picked it up with a certain amount of impatience, reflected, he was certain, in his gruff, “What?”

“Jack?”

“Daniel.” O’Neill rested his elbows on his desk, leaning forward.  “I was just thinking about you.”

“Really? Why?”

“Nothing important—just traipsing down memory lane.”  He raised the hand not holding the phone and scratched absently at his head.  “You know how it is.”

“Yes, well.  No sense dwelling.”

“I tell Sam that a lot.”

Silence stretched itself over the line, and Jack could hear Daniel whispering something to someone about a cookie—probably to one of his twin daughters. He came back into the conversation with a sigh.  “I’m never going to live through this Daddy thing.  Those two have me totally figured out.”

“It’s a positive thing to admit your weaknesses.”  Jack rested his chin on his hand.  “At least that’s what they say.”

“Yeah. They’re idiots.” Daniel sighed. “Hey—I’m actually calling as a favor for Vala.”

“What’s she up to?”

“Not much—and that’s kind of the problem.”

“Oh?”

“She was supposed to meet Sam today.  Vala was going to take her to a certain store that she liked for maternity clothes.”

“ _Was_ supposed to?” The hair on the back of Jack’s neck prickled, then rose.  “What are you saying?”

This pause was longer, denser.  Daniel shuffled something—and then his voice changed, as if muffled somehow. “Vala waited at the shop for over an hour, Jack.”

Jack leaned back in his chair, his knuckles white around the phone. He found himself repeating himself. “Daniel—what are you saying?”

Daniel blew out a tight breath.  “Jack—Vala has called Sam’s phones—both of them.  And she tried texting her.  She’s not answering.”

Jack couldn’t speak around the pain constricting his throat.  He closed his eyes, concentrating on controlling the panic he felt rising within him.

“Have you heard from her today?”  Daniel spoke gently, but earnestly.

“Not since this morning.”  The General grit the words out.  “When I left, she was eating breakfast.”  For the second time—it had become a habit for Sam to force herself to eat again after her daily bout of morning sickness deprived her of her first meal. They tried to laugh about it, but it was tough for Jack to see her so miserable.  “I haven’t heard from her since then.”

“It’s probably nothing.”  Daniel’s voice showed a determined attempt at positive thinking.  “But I’ll be right there.”

And as O’Neill hung up the phone, he couldn’t quell the little voice in the back of his head—the one that told him that something was desperately, terribly wrong.

What were the chances that both his secretary and his wife would go missing on the same day?

And then he swiped his hand down his face in a motion that bespoke a grudging acceptance.

Because in O’Neill’s world, those chances were pretty damned good.


	3. Pinpoints

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Pinpoints_ **

 

 

“Are you all right, Colonel?”

Glinda heard the other woman sigh, then shift again.  Finally, an answer broke through the darkness. “I’m fine, Glinda. I just need to find a restroom. My eyeballs are floating. I didn’t believe Vala when she told me this would happen.  I used to be able to hold it longer than all the guys.”

Glinda struggled not to smile, but found it to be nearly impossible. After all, they were in the dark again—it wasn’t as if the Colonel could see her.

“You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”

Glinda’s smile dimmed slightly in surprise.  “I’m not laughing, per se.  I’m commiserating.  It happens to the best of us, either through age or pregnancy.”  The corner of her mouth tweaked.  “And I can’t quite believe that we are sitting here talking about this while being held captive by an alien villain.”

“It’s okay.”  And blessed be—there was a note of humor in Sam’s voice.  “Jack’s always telling me that I need to keep positive.  While I’m constantly thinking about everything that can and usually does go wrong, he’s telling me that it would all work out.”

“And does it?”

“Work out?”  Sam paused. “Usually.  Some moments are tougher than others.”

Glinda opened her mouth to agree, but found completely different words emerging, instead.  “And will this moment work out?”

Again, the Colonel paused, and when her voice broke through the darkness again, it was earnest.  “I hope so, Glinda. I really do.”

“So, what do we need to do?”

“Well,” Sam sighed, shifting again.  “We need to get out of here.”

“I take that to mean that we aren’t going to sit around and wait for the cavalry.” She’d never broken out of prison before. Glinda didn’t know if that thought should be terrifying or thrilling.

“No, Pinky, we’re not.”

Glinda smiled again.  The nickname conjured up images of the General—and again she determined that she would rise to the challenge.  She served as administrative support for General O’Neill of Homeworld Security—and what could possibly support him more than bringing his wife home to him safe and sound?

“All right, then, Colonel.”  She straightened her spine and squared her wiry shoulders.  “What do we need to do?”

“Can you sit up?”

“That’s a good question, Colonel.”  Glinda rolled slightly to her left, anchoring her elbow into the deep nap of the carpeting.  Bracing herself, she shifted her hip, then drew her knee up, using leverage from her other leg to sit up.  She was grateful for the darkness, for she felt her skirt hike up to mid thigh—and as much as she liked and admired the Colonel, she wasn’t quite sure that their relationship had progressed to that level of familiarity.

“I’m sitting.  And so I suppose the answer to that question would be ‘yes’.”  Glinda turned in the direction of where Sam was sitting—grimacing as her body protested.  She had been lying in essentially the same position for several hours, at least, and ladies in her state of maturity took a little bit longer to loosen up than the younger crowd.  She thanked her lucky stars for Lydia dragging her to those cursed yoga classes. Although she could have done quite happily without the Neti Pot demonstration, the stretching poses had finally come in handy.  “What do you need me to do to help you?”

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“In my purse.”  _If it was still there._   Glinda closed her mouth on that thought, deciding to adopt the O’Neill Positive Thinking approach to Crisis Management.  If it had worked for the General during all those years of traipsing through the galaxy—there must be some redeeming merit to it. “I need to get the strap down off my shoulder.”

She shrugged and then wriggled her shoulder, shoving the large, heavy fabric purse down her arm.  She’d made the bag the previous month at the meeting of her quilt guild—the Quilting Qats had sponsored a class for its members.  It was larger than other bags she’d used, and tended, she’d noted with a little embarrassment, to collect things.  With both hands, she grasped it, hefting it into her lap. 

“Can you get to it?”  The Colonel’s voice exuded all manner of patience.

“I’ve got it on my lap.  I’m trying to unzip it.” But even that eluded her—the zipper merely crumpled as she yanked with both hands at the pull. She stilled, considering the situation, then shifted again in her position and put one end of the purse between her knees. Sandwiching the strap in her elbow, she pulled it taut, then opened the zipper with her bound hands. “I can’t believe how difficult it is to do simple things with one’s hands tied up.  But there now—it’s open.”

“Good—now see if you can find the phone.”

Glinda reached into the large bag, skimming the contents with her fingertips. The phone would be in the pocket she’d made especially for that purpose.  She felt for and found the side where she’d divided the optional pocket into three sections and then sewn in hook and loop dots for closures. Smiling in personal triumph, she located it, and with a tiny _zwipp_ of the closure, the phone came free.

“I’ve got it, Colonel Carter!”  She held the phone aloft.  She’d inadvertently pressed a button when she’d pulled it out, and the front screen lit up. In the bleak darkness that surrounded them, however, the light seemed brilliant.  Glinda turned it as she would a flashlight to see the Colonel smiling at her, her expression one of understated pride.

“How’s the connection?”

Glinda turned the contraption back towards herself.  Her phone did not belong in the annals of high-technology. Nothing more than a basic flip phone, it had been the freebie that came with her plan.  And, upon inspection, the little section on the screen that showed the strength of the signal was sadly lacking in bars. She forced herself not to slump in disappointment, fought back the completely uncharacteristic impulse to curse. She wasn’t prepared to emulate _that_ portion of the General’s character quite yet.

Reminding herself to be positive, she pushed the power button, but to no avail. The message flashing on the screen said it all.  Frowning, Glinda turned back towards the Colonel.  “I’m sorry, Ma’am.” She held the phone out. “There’s no signal. Nothing at all.”

“What else do you have in your purse?”

“Nothing else communicative.”

“No, Glinda, I’m talking sharp objects.  Something we can use to cut through these Zip ties.  Fingernail clippers, maybe, or a metal nail file.”

Glinda looked down at the vastness of her purse for a moment before holding the phone closer.  Carefully balancing the phone in one of her bound hands, she pawed through the depths of the bag with the other, coming up with a decorative paper sack.  Across the front, cheerful letters spelled out, _The Quilter’s Bee_.  “I bought this just before I saw you at the mall this afternoon.”

“What is it?”

Glinda removed a thin package.  Turning it, and holding the lit phone next to it, she showed it to the Colonel, who frowned.  “A pizza cutter?”

“No, it’s a rotary cutter.  Quilters use these to cut fabric accurately.”  She turned it back to herself, then carefully perched the phone on the bag before bending back the paper backing of the packet and inserting a fingernail under the plastic bubble in front.  With several small rips, she’d detached the plastic well enough to withdraw the object, dropping the torn paper to the floor next to her.  She retrieved the phone and held both items up towards the Colonel.

Sam sat, patiently watching her, a bemused expression playing on the corner of her lips. 

“I’ve been wanting a 60 millimeter Olfa for a while—and this one is ergonomic. The handle locks.” Glinda demonstrated, pulling the handle towards her palm with her fingers, then snapping the safety lock with her thumb, exposing a wickedly shiny blade.  “They’re really quite sharp—much more so than a pizza cutter. My girlfriend Jo Louise has cut a dozen layers of fabric with hers. With a forty-five millimeter blade, you’re limited to only six layers or so, depending on how sharp the blade is.” She snapped the safety lock off and released the handle, sheathing the blade.  “You can understand why this size would be so useful.”

“Yes, well, you know what they say.”  The Colonel moved, scooching towards Glinda stink-bug style.

The secretary pushed the button the phone again, illuminating them both in its screen-light. “No, Colonel, what do they say?”

Sam grinned.  “Size matters.”

A crease formed between Glinda’s well-plucked eye brows.  “Well, of course it does.  One must always take dimension into account when calculating any fit or contemplating accurate construction.”

The Colonel actually snorted, shaking her head.  “Oh, Pinky.  Remind me to tell the General you need a raise.”  Sidling up next to Glinda, she pivoted around, holding her hands out behind her. “Can you cut these?”

Glinda again juggled the rotary cutter and the phone.  Shining the phone onto the Colonel’s hands, she studied the way the zip ties were fastened.  Two of the plastic ties had been used—one on each wrist, and they were linked together creating a chain of sorts.  Glinda placed the phone on the floor so that the light shone on the Colonel’s hands, and then knelt, carefully exposing the blade.

“Please don’t move, Colonel.”  With a plastic _snick_ , she pushed the safety button.  “I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”

“You’ll be fine, Glinda.”

“But if you move much, your fingers might not be.”  She pushed the Colonel’s hands down as flat onto the carpet as she could, so that the zip ties were flush with the floor.

Glinda squinted in the dim glow of the phone, lowering the cutter to the loosest of the ties.  Sawing just the teeniest bit, she created a groove, then pressed down into the carpet with the blade. With a decided _snap_ , the blade broke through the binding, and Sam’s hands came free.

“Truly, Glinda.”  Sam drew her hands around to her front, gingerly stretching out her arms, working kinks out of her wrists. “You really do deserve that raise.”

“Well, at the very least, a new blade for my cutter.”  Glinda handed the tool into Sam’s outstretched palm. “These plastic ties will probably nick it.”

Within seconds the other ties had been dispensed with.  Sam stood and, using the phone as a flashlight, crossed to the door.  She found a panel and flipped a switch.  A lamp blazed on—a multi-bulbed affair that hung in brightly colored glass tiers in one corner. Glinda vaguely remembered having a similar lamp in an apartment she’d shared with some fellow stenography students during a wild time in the Sixties.  They had stayed up late nearly every night.  It was a wonder any of them had ever graduated.

But, without the glaring fear she’d encountered in meeting her first alien, Glinda could now pay attention to their environs.

The room was almost barren—the single couch and the lamp, and the wild carpet beneath their feet.  On either side of the couch sat twin dark wood end tables, on top of which stood matching lamps of indiscriminate make—either brass or plastic—neither stylish nor remarkable. Bare cinderblock walls and a low ceiling completed what seemed to be little more than a cement box. Glinda felt, because of the lack of a cell phone signal, that the room was most assuredly a basement.

Carefully, Glinda pushed herself to her feet.  Standing now—and thankfully, less wobbly than she’d feared she’d be—she could see no windows—and just the one door, through which had previously entered the Goa’uld.  The couch that the Colonel had leaned against seemed to be a holdover from a different era like the hanging light fixture—olive green with wide brown stripes.

Above the couch, however, there hanged a conglomeration of pictures. They littered the unfinished cinderblock walls—and every one of them featured horses.  Dozens of them—photographs and paintings ranging from simple charcoal sketches to large oils lavishly displayed in carved gilt frames.

What truly caught Glinda’s attention were the multicolored rosettes adorning some of the pieces of art. 

Glinda had quite a few of her own in the sewing studio at home. Although she’d won those awards for her textile art, and not for livestock, she recognized the implication of the clue.

She set her mouth firmly around the satisfied smile that beckoned to be released. Her deductive skills had been well honed over her many years—she felt not just a little like the character Mrs. Pollifax from her favorite series of detective novels.  The rosettes cast significance not on the artwork, but on the subject.

This basement, Glinda felt certain, sat amidst horse property.

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

“Daniel, she just wouldn’t leave the car.”  Jack stood in the parking garage, staring at the vintage Volvo. Not a doubt existed anywhere in his mind—the car belonged to his wife.  He knew her license plate number.  Hell, he knew the _car_.  He and Daniel had spent only a few moments in the garage near the mall before they had found it on the bottom level, near the elevators.

“Could she have met someone else here?”

“What, like another guy?”

“Jack, don’t be an ass.”  Daniel had reverted to the first eight years of their relationship—working as a team again must have brought it out in him.

“Vala? You said she hadn’t showed up for that little shopping trip.”

“No, like someone else.”

“Daniel—my secretary is missing, too.”  Jack allowed his fingers to skim the pristine finish of the vehicle once before turning back to his friend.  “Like I said before, it’s not a coincidence.”

“So what do we know?”

“That they’re both gone.”

“Since when?”  Squinting, Daniel cocked his head to one side.  “When was the last time you saw Miss Baldrich?”

“Lunch.” Jack answered automatically. “She had an errand she wanted to run and warned me that she might be late back.”

“And Sam?”

Jack paced to the back of the car.  “I haven’t heard from Sam since this morning.  The only phone call I’ve had all day has been from Landry about some device.”

“Which device?”

“That evil dead box thingy that you and Doctor Lee found in South America.”

“Telchak’s device?”  Daniel quieted, his mouth pursed tightly.  “What did he say about it?”

Jack’s expression hardened.  “Daniel, you’re not in the loop anymore.  Since you took up with the Smithsonian, you lost your clearance.”

“Jack.” He ran a hand through his hair, his face a study in concern.  “Let me help you.”

The General considered, then came close again, leaning lightly on the side of the Volvo. “Landry said that during a routine audit at Area Fifty-One, they tested it.”

“Why?”

“They do it to all alien artifacts that are potentially dangerous.” Jack reached up and loosened his tie with an impatient tug of a hand.  “Every few months they do a battery of tests to make sure that the artifacts are still all present and accounted for.”

“That’s right.  Since the Kinsey thing.” Daniel didn’t elaborate—knowing that Jack didn’t need to traipse down that mimic device road again. The General hated remembering being in prison, and loathed the fact that he’d been credited with saving Kinsey’s life.

“So during this routine inspection, turns out that something’s wrong with the—zombie—thing at Area Fifty-one.”

 

“Like—it’s broken?”

“No, Daniel.”  Jack frowned, pushing himself away from the car, stepping closer to the other man. “The device at R and D in Nevada is a fake.  Someone switched it out.”

“And the real one?”

Jack shook his head, his frown deepening.  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned back around to stare at his wife’s empty car.  “No one knows _where_ it is.”


	4. Prisms

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Prisms_ **

 

 

He hadn’t been able to go back home.  And he’d realized the depths of his own cowardice when he’d left her car in the parking garage.  The only reason that he’d allowed Daniel to pick him up at the Pentagon rather than drive himself to the mall was that he’d intended to bring the car home.  Pregnant or not, Sam _would_ kill him if he let it get stolen. 

The extra key to the Volvo felt leaden in his pocket.  He’d perfunctorily dropped it in there, practicality dictating the action.  His default setting always seemed to be tactics and expedience.  Especially when he found it difficult to breathe around the fear that gripped his core.

But he desperately wanted to be wrong—wanted to believe that she had just gotten lost in a book or a conversation or a store and would eventually find her way back out to where the Volvo sat in its place near the elevators. And, ridiculously, it bothered him to think that she wouldn’t have a ride home.  So he’d gotten back into Daniel’s car and they’d driven away, and Jack had not allowed himself to look back.

But neither could he return to his house.  He’d chosen the brownstone a month or so after his arrival in the city. And he’d lived in it, alone, acquiring a couch, a table, a bed.  He’d hung a picture or two, chosen a new shower curtain when the old one had developed something nasty along the bottom.  Figured out the best places to put the TV and speaker system, spent an inordinate amount of time finding the perfect microwave, and finally put his telescope on the small balcony that opened off the master bedroom. He’d installed shelving for her books and moved a computer desk into the smaller of the two extra bedrooms—just for something to do.

The projects had kept him occupied on those rare days when the world didn’t seem liable to explode—had kept him from focusing on the fact that he was married to the most incredible person he had ever known, and couldn’t even manage to keep her on the same planet for longer than a weekend.

But still, all along, he’d imagined _her_ there—pictured her sitting by the large bay window overlooking the back garden with her afternoon tea, the sun glinting off her hair.  In his mind, he’d seen her reading in the chair they’d moved from her apartment in Nevada, and watched as she gazed at birds at the feeder by the kitchen window, oblivious of the toast burning.  At times he’d been surprised when he’d passed the office he’d built for her and glanced in to find it empty.

As the solitary weeks and months had stretched out, he’d found other things to improve—planting things in the postage stamp sized back yard, installing wood shutters, painting.  He’d unpacked, finding some measure of intimacy in handling her books, her clothes, her things. She’d helped when she’d been home—but frankly, the thought of trying to accomplish the mundane in those brief weeks that he would have her to himself between assignments felt only slightly less obscene than volunteering to be an Ori Prior. 

So they’d found themselves ignoring the boxes and bare walls and concentrating instead on each other.  Filling other empty spaces with memories and warmth.  It had been supposed to carry them over until the next time she arrived back on Earth.

It didn’t.

Because no matter how much stuff he filled the place with, until she’d arrived back on terra firma for good and he’d woken up next to her for the first time in their wide bed, it hadn’t been home.

This time, though, she’d taken a leave of absence.  To be honest, Jack didn’t know how many strings had been pulled to give her this amount of time without a specific responsibility. And when she’d unexpectedly turned up pregnant, she’d started talking retirement.

He still wasn’t quite sure what to think about that.  He thought he’d be the one to do that first. But then, he wasn’t gestating. There was something to be said for the powerful decisive power of the uterus.

Jack closed his eyes.  He felt tired—and the street lights flashing by exacerbated the throbbing that had taken over his head. Their destination eluded him until he heard the air traffic and recognized the highway they were on—they had passed Reagan National several minutes before and Daniel had turned onto Slater’s Lane, apparently aimed for the gracious colonial that Vala had fallen in love with when Doctor Jackson had first accepted the curatorship at the Smithsonian.

Daniel must have sensed Jack’s realization.  He offered a little half-shrug from behind the steering wheel, his face illuminated in the lights of the dash.  “I hope you don’t mind—I figured we could hole up at our place and get some ideas.”

Jack nodded.  “It makes sense. Better location.”

“Are you really sure that you don’t want to call in the police on this?”

The General considered, then glanced sideways at the man who was arguably both his closest friend and greatest critic.  But there wasn’t anyone else he would have—or could have—called. No one else who would understand. “There’s nothing they could do. They would investigate and ultimately find nothing.”

“Because you think this is related to the Stargate.”

“I _know_ this is related to the Stargate—and to that damned glowing box.”

“They studied Telchak’s device at Area 51 for years—and they never found any use for it other than the weapon Sam, Selmak, and Jacob developed to stop the Kull warriors.”

“And the only person on Earth who figured it out is who, again?” The answer was self-evident.

The archaeologist tilted his head, nodding slightly. “I know, Jack. But it doesn’t seem necessary to kidnap her. Why would anyone take her and the box? And how does your secretary fit into it?”

Jack leaned his head backwards against the seat.  “I don’t know, Daniel.  But it’s all related.  Somehow it’s all connected.” The phone in his hand vibrated, and he unconsciously flipped it open with his thumb and pressed the ‘send’ button.  As he raised it to his ear, he cast a narrow look at the man driving.  “I know it is.”

And the General tried to ignore Daniel’s wince when he finally spoke into the phone. “What?”

“Jack.”

“Hank. What do you have for me?”

“We’ve traced the transponder.”  His pause said more than words would have.

O’Neill interpreted the hesitation, then swallowed.  “When did it lose transmission?”

“Twelve forty-eight in the afternoon your time.  And you were right—it was last tracked in the vicinity of that parking garage.  Because of varying levels of interference, Colonel Baxter wasn’t able to pinpoint it any further.”

“And then what happened?”

“Baxter’s communications officer says that it just stopped transmitting—as if it had been turned off.”

“E M pulse?”

“Could be.  It would have to be something big.”

Squinting out the window as the buildings flew past, Jack considered. “Zats wouldn’t do it.”

“No, the transponders were created specifically to be able to withstand that kind of energy weapon.  It would have to be something else.”

The General’s fingers made furrows in his hair.  That Mayfield woman had cut the locator beacon out of Vala’s arm. His hand tightened around the cell phone at his ear, his breathing quickening.

“Jack, there’s also information about the missing device.” Hank voice carried a good measure of apprehension. 

“Spill it, Hank.”

Shuffling papers accompanied a lengthy pause.  Finally, Landry sighed, and Jack could practically feel his hesitance. “You know about the internal audit.”

“What about it?  It’s routine—nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Well, the science team in charge of that was led by Doctor Lee.”

“Doctor Lee?  I was under the impression that he was still in Colorado Springs.”

“He requested a transfer a few months ago.  He was quite adamant about it, too.”  A smile tinged Hank’s words.  “Said something about stagnant science and no longer being on the frontlines of discovery.”

“Sounds like him.”  O’Neill relaxed his hold slightly on the device in his hand.  Tossing a look to his left, he muttered, “Sounds like most scientists, come to think about it.”

“Anyway, he personally performed the audit on Telchak’s machine.  His assistant said that he arrived early for work, logged in the device, and then left the facility.”

“He just came in to deal with that box?”

Landry’s response was immediate.  “Jack, he hasn’t been back since.  They sent a team to his house, and his wife said that he’d been invited to a conference somewhere near Arlington. He left two days ago. She hasn’t heard from him, and he’s not answering her calls.”

Jack scowled.  “Hank—are you telling me that Doctor Lee took the zombie machine?”

“We don’t know, Jack.  What we do know is that he and the box have been gone for the same amount of time.”

“Doctor Lee.”  He just had to be sure he’d heard correctly.  “Balding, glasses, shaped-like-a-penguin Doctor Lee?”

“That’s the one.  Except for the penguin part.”

“Come on, Hank.  You’ve seen the man.”

“All right.  But he’s a good scientist and an honorable person.  I just find it hard to believe he’d be involved in anything nefarious—regardless of apparent coincidences.”

Daniel pulled up in front of his house and stopped the car.  Turning the ignition off, he sat back and glanced over to where Jack was deliberating, a scowl marring his features.  It was obvious that he’d heard the conversation, and his disbelief showed blatantly on his face.

“Coincidences.” The General allowed the word to float, the implication to seep in a little.  “Hank, I’m asking a favor.”

“Don’t alert the IOA?”

“Yeah—that’s the one.”

“The only people that know about this situation right now are me and Walter.” Landry waited for a moment before continuing.  “We’ve devised a cover for why we’re asking around.  I know that you want this hushed.  What I can’t figure out is why.”

“Something’s fishy, Hank.”  O’Neill shook his head, staring at the house in front of him without really seeing it. “It doesn’t feel right. I don’t want those idiots from the Advisory barging in.  They’d just make it worse by trying to help.  This has to be handled correctly.  Covertly.”

“Because she’s one of this country’s greatest assets?”  Somehow, Landry found it possible to exude both compassion and skepticism in his tone.  “Or because she’s your wife?”

O’Neill waited, pondering.  His fingers picked at the buttons in the door panel that raised and lowered the windows—flicking them without pressure.  Finally, ducking his chin, he breathed shallowly.  “She’s pregnant, Hank.”

“And her transponder’s been disabled.” The implications weighed heavily. Anything strong enough to kill the locator could damage other things.  And being held captive was hardly an ideal situation for anyone—the compounded worry in this particular instance would be practically unbearable. In Colorado, the General shook his head. “Jack, there are some good people around who can still help.”

“I know that.”  O’Neill stared out of the car window into the deepening night.  Old growth trees around the house obscured the moon, making the lights languishing yellow through the windows seem even brighter.  “And when the time comes—” His voice trailed off into the darkness.

“I know, Jack.  You’ll ask.” A squeak of chair leather accompanied a change in Landry’s tone.  “Just don’t wait too long.  In the meantime, I’ll keep the Hammond informed. 

O’Neill closed his eyes against the relief that rushed through him. “Thank you.”

“Well, I figure you’ve saved the collective asses of everyone on Earth often enough to merit a freebie or two.”  Landry paused, and his chair squeaked again.  “And you’re welcome.”

Clicking his phone shut, the General sat silent, his lips thin, brows slung low over dark eyes.  He felt Daniel’s gaze on him, knew that the younger man was judging, assessing, making considerations. Balancing the cell phone on his knee, Jack threw a glance in his direction.  “You heard all that?”

“I did.” Daniel nodded, removing the key from the ignition.

“Good,” He leaned backwards in his seat, extending his long legs as much as possible in the close confines of the sedan.  “Then I won’t have to repeat myself.” 

“We’ll find her, Jack.”

It took too long for O’Neill to reply.  “I remember back in the early eighties when that little boy was kidnapped in Florida.”

“Adam something—his dad did that fugitive show.”

Jack nodded.  “I sat there looking at the TV every night—like a load of other people, I’m sure—and I remember wondering how in the world they’d find him.  There are millions of people out there—how do you find one kid in a country of millions, in a world of billions?”

Daniel sat silently, staring straight ahead, waiting.

“That was before I knew what I know now.  About what else is out there.  Who else is out there.”  He peered through the window at his side, trying to see past the large trees looming over them, past the neighborhood lights, out into the darkness of space.

“We’ll find her, Jack.”

“I keep thinking that.”  He angled a look at his friend.  “I keep trying to think positive.”

Daniel extended a hand, palm up.  “I mean, there are only so many places she could be.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Daniel.”  A raise of the other man’s brows was all it took for Jack to continue. “She could be anywhere in the universe by now.”


	5. Glimmers

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Glimmers_ **

 

 

Glinda would never, for the rest of her days, be able to look at a seam ripper in the same way.  Of course, this particular seam ripper was broken, now, but she knew that she could get another. The white handled Clover was a classic.

What she’d never be able to duplicate was the sheer joy she’d felt when the Colonel had used the seam ripper and a stylus to pick the lock on the sliding door. About the manner in which the other woman had come to know how to perform such a function, Glinda did not want to speculate.  Suffice it to say that she had felt a certain amount of reticence about the attempt when the Colonel had bent close to the lock, and then pure elation when she’d heard the telltale _snick_ of the lock releasing itself.

They had made sure to be prepared before attempting the action. Sam believed that the reason that their kidnappers had not removed the purse was that it appeared to be clothing. And it did, Glinda allowed, as it was made of cotton, blue paisleys with white and green accents, and her shirt contained many of the same colors.  It could have been a scarf, or an odd vest, had their captors not paid close attention. And as they’d been taken from the parking garage, Glinda assumed that time would have been in short supply. Picking up two unconscious women from the floor and hefting them into a vehicle of some sort could not have been an easy task.

Not that the villains had wasted any time in stripping the Colonel of every one of her belongings.  When they had met by sheer accident at the café in the mall, Sam had been carrying a parcel, as well as a small handbag.  Both of those were now gone, along with the contents of the pockets in Sam’s maternity jeans.

And so the attention had turned to Glinda’s purse.

After a quick perusal through the heavy bag, Sam had made an impromptu inventory, setting aside key items that could be useful.  Glinda hadn’t known that a measuring tape could be utilized as a weapon, and quite frankly hadn’t gumptioned up the courage to ask exactly how. Same with the crochet hook she’d forgotten was in a zippered case where she kept pens.  Gouging, she supposed.  And Glinda fervently hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary. 

Why the Colonel had palmed the four inch long key chain accessory that was in the shape of a rotary cutter ruler, she couldn’t imagine.  But the translucent green plastic doo-dad had ceased to be innocently appealing as soon as Sam had slid her middle finger through its ball chain and took a practice swipe through the air. 

Several of the items, including the rotary cutter, had found their way into Sam’s pockets.  They had split one of Glinda’s three granola bars, and tucked the rest back into the bag for later. Glinda had also produced gum, a small packet of peanuts, and some butterscotch candies, but they, too, were designated for later consumption.

Glinda slung the purse back over her shoulder.  They stood at the sliding door, Sam’s hand hovering over the light switch. The more experienced of the two had been allowed to make the tactical decisions—and if the Colonel thought it necessary to turn the lights off before opening the door, so be it. To be fair, Sam had explained it was to prevent a sudden glow from alerting someone that the door was open, but Glinda had still internally resisted.  She just hated to voluntarily lose the light.  And although she had never feared the dark before, and the emotion seemed like a knee-jerk reaction to their circumstance, still, there it was.

Glinda had, however, held fast to her opinion that she should carry the bag. The Colonel had offered, kindly positing the notion that the heavy purse just might prove unwieldy, but in this case, the secretary had emerged victorious.  Once she’d explained that Sam would need freedom of motion in the event of an attack, the younger woman had nodded with a grim smile.

“Are you ready?”

Glinda drew herself up to her full five foot-seven inch height. Squaring her thin shoulders, she reseated the purse, then grabbed the strap firmly.  “I believe I am.”

“Remember—stay behind me, and try not to speak unless it’s necessary. We need to keep quiet and avoid detection.”

“Yes, Colonel Carter.”  Glinda’s nod was earnest.

Sam flicked the light off—and, placing her fingers in the notched handle, slowly slid the panel aside.

They had both listened for a long while at the door before attempting the escape. No noise or hint of movement had penetrated the wood, and both Glinda and Sam felt certain that the outer portions of the basement had been left deserted.

As the Colonel pulled the door aside, Glinda fought against the urge to hold her breath.  Nothing in her life had prepared her for this—for this rush of terror.  The accompanying surge of excitement confused her—she wasn’t supposed to be having fun, was she?  Her hand tightened on the strap of the purse.  She needed something to hold onto.  Something to ground her.

The hallway outside the door lay quiet, dark, and still.  A staircase ascended to the right of the door, while a short wall containing two doors stretched a short distance to the left. Sam exited, walking softly, and sidled to the left.  Approaching the first door, she leaned close and touched her ear to it, listening intently. After a moment, she hurried a few paces to the next door, and repeated the process. 

Glinda followed with some hesitation, pausing as Sam soft-stepped back towards the staircase.  The Colonel walked back over, her feet silent in the carpeting, and stood at the edge of the staircase, peering upward before turning back towards where Glinda had stopped in the middle of the hall.

Her voice was practically a whisper.  “There’s no noise coming from either room.  There’s another door at the top of the staircase, and the light is coming from some sort of transom window up there.”

“So we’re alone down here?”

“It appears so.”

“Should we try to go upstairs?”

Sam let loose a rueful kind of smile.  “Well, actually, I’m kind of hoping that one of these rooms is a bathroom.”

Glinda nodded.  “That would be extremely beneficial to us both, at the moment.”

Sam held up a hand in a “wait” gesture, then turned back towards the near door. Taking the handle carefully in her left hand, she sidled up against the jamb on the opposite side. Turning the knob, she shoved the door open, allowing it to swing wide.

 

Glinda stood, quite frozen, in her place, as the door gaped.  Sam pushed the door wider with the side of her foot, then posed herself at the door, using is as cover as she peered more fully into the darkened room.  Finally, she backed out and padded back over to where Glinda still stood, silently clutching the purse.

Quietly, Sam reported.  “We got lucky. You go first, Glinda. But don’t flush.”

Glinda frowned.  “Why not?”

“Because the sound of water in the plumbing might be audible. This seems like an older house—it’s not going to be well sound-proofed.”

“I think we’re in rural Virginia.”  Glinda glanced towards the stairs.

The Colonel’s face relaxed into another smile.  “Well, regardless of where the house sits geographically, it’s still of older construction, and flushing might give us away.  There might be people upstairs.  And don’t turn the lights on until you’ve closed the door.”

“Because they might see?”

Sam nodded.

Gathering herself together, Glinda handed the purse to Sam. Resisting the urge to tip-toe, she entered the lavatory and shut the door as quietly as she could behind her, then turned on the light.  The bathroom appeared older—typical of a country ranch house.  The toilet was sandwiched between a tub devoid of any curtain or accessories, and a single spigot sink set into a wooden cabinet. A decorative doweled stand held hygienic paper directly in front of the toilet.  White porcelain tiles lined the walls from floor to about mid way, and then peeling wallpaper took over, faded from what had to have been a rather virulent shade of yellow into a muted puce.  A quick glance up at the ceiling revealed a single vent directly over the commode, and a double light fixture tilted drunkenly on the wall above a medicine cabinet.

Something on the tank caught her eye, and she bent forward to get a better glimpse of it.  A _Reader’s Digest_ —and closer inspection revealed it to be from October of 1987.  Refusing to contemplate the last time the maid had visited, Glinda instead focused on relief. Her first order of business was her— _business_ , as it were. She finished as quickly as possible, then turned towards the sink, but stopped herself just as her fingertips skimmed the knob. The faucet might alert someone as would the flushing of the toilet—and she had antibacterial hand sanitizer in her purse.

Somewhat proud of the fact that she had expounded upon Sam Carter’s rules of tactical bathroom usage, Glinda turned off the light and exited, ready to accept stewardship of the purse.  Her eyes widened when she saw that the Colonel already had the little bottle of clear liquid ready for her.

“I forgot to tell you not to wash.”

Glinda shook a liberal portion of the cool concoction on her hands and, tucking the bottle in the crook of her elbow, rubbed it in with gusto. “I very nearly forgot—but then I deduced that water rushing through old pipes would be noisy—regardless of from whence that water rushes.”

“I should have known that you’d figure that out.”  Sam’s voice, while low in volume, still carried evidence of pride. Accepting the bottle from Glinda, she tucked it into her pocket.  “Jack said from the beginning that you were one of the smartest people he knew.”

Glinda ducked her head against the heat that rose, unbidden, in her cheeks. She fitted the straps of the handbag over her shoulder, fighting the smile that threatened to beam—a highly inappropriate reaction onsidering their present circumstance.  She peeped a look at the Colonel, who had taken the ponytail out of her hair and was presently occupied with re-securing the long blond strands. With a few deft movements of her hands, she had braided the long mass, then wound the elastic band around the bottom.

Moving as if to circle Glinda, she paused and caught her gaze. “You’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine, Ma’am.”

And the Colonel sighed.  “Glinda, please call me Sam.”

Glinda nodded.  “Yes, Ma’am.”

The Colonel sighed again, her mouth in an odd twist, before passing by the secretary and entering the bathroom.  The door shut silently, and then a faint glow seeped out from around the frame.

Intent on fulfilling her purpose as guard, Glinda stepped out from the hallway and angled a look up at the staircase.  All seemed well.  She waited another moment before peeking again. 

Through the transom she saw a shift in shadows, then a heard a slight noise. Horrifyingly, the knob turned, and Glinda ducked back into the darkened room and slid the door almost completely closed just as she saw a single man come through at the top of the stairs.

His treads were light on the steps—Glinda doubted that the noise would even register in the lavatory.  She considered options—weighing possibilities with the swiftness of one used to thinking quickly.  She found that it was impossible to deal with her fear, with her own doubts, when confronted with such a circumstance, so she tramped it down and focused on the Colonel—keeping her safe.

She dropped the purse to the floor and took a few steps in the dark, using her memory of the room’s outline to guide her to one of the end tables. It took only a moment for her to grasp the lamp and yank the plug out of the wall.  Thankfully, the shade fell noiselessly to the floor, not having been secured to the fixture.  She hurried back to the doorway, her heart beating ready to burst, her hands clammy on the base of the cheap piece.  She edged the door ever-so-slightly with her toe, and swallowed her panic when she saw the figure alight at the bottom of the stairs and turn, his face a question, towards the bathroom door.

“What the—” His mutter seemed like a shout in the quietness of the basement. Glinda watched as he reached into a holster of sorts on his side and withdrew a strange, rounded gun-like thing, and when he depressed something on the handle, she flinched. She’d heard that noise before. Just before she’d seen the blue light in the parking garage.  This, then, was a zat gun.

Shoes muffled by the carpeting, the man reached out a hand and touched the knob on the bathroom door, zat gun ready.  Glinda waited until his fingers were twisting the knob before sliding her own door wide with her bare foot and emerging, the lamp raised aloft in both hands. She tried not to think as she aimed for him, tried not to be horrified at what she was about to do. Hurrying with a purposeful stride, she crossed the narrow hall to where the thug stood at the bathroom door.

She’d never hit anyone before—her karate classes had been strictly non-contact—appropriate when dealing with older people with porous bones—so when the lamp came down hard on the man’s head, Glinda wasn’t prepared for the sickening sound, or for the reverberation of the lamp down her own arms and into her body. She stumbled backwards, fighting to stay upright even as the man hit the wall next to the bathroom door and bounced backwards.  The zat fell free from his hand and dropped with a thud on the carpet next to the wall, but still he turned, one hand flying to the back of his head, a few choice words escaping his twisted lips.

His gaze searched the tight quarters and found her, and he started forward, raising a hand with the intent of aiming at her.  Perhaps the knock on his noggin had thrown him off—he obviously didn’t realize the hand was empty until Glinda had already scampered back into the darkened cell.

“Come back here!”  His voice sounded brash in the hall, muted only slightly by the thick carpeting. 

Glinda threw herself at the wall directly next to the sliding door, holding the lamp before her in readiness.  Heart pounding, she waited, listening as his shoes brushed over the carpet in the hall until his steps paused at the doorway.  The wedge of light from the hall reached into the room about six feet—Glinda’s panty-hose covered toes hovered just inches from the left edge of illumination. Struggling to remain calm, she dug her toes into the rough nap of the rug, adjusting her fingers on her impromptu weapon.

The man’s large body came to a stop just outside the doorway, obscuring some of the light.  His breathing cut the silence, heavy—wet sounding—he made no attempt at stealth.  “Come on, old lady.”  He took a single step forward, pausing again just at the threshold. “We did you a favor not zatting you twice, anyway.  Stupid broad.”

Glinda flinched, and something inside her reared.  Those were fighting words.  For all of her sixty-seven years, she had behaved herself with the strict intention of demonstrating grace and etiquette in all her endeavors.

Nobody called Glinda Baldrich a _broad_.

Without thinking, without anything raging within her but blind fury, Glinda reached back and gathered her anger, her fear.  She adjusted the lamp until her grip was like that of a major leaguer and swung out high, and to her right, the weighty lamp striking the rogue directly on the forehead. 

The sound of it would remain with her for the rest of her days—the crushing-bone _squitch_ of his nose breaking, of his head colliding with the cheap brass object.  The impact stopped him in his tracks, and just enough light ringed around him that she could see his eyes shift backwards into his head as his body fell limp and he collapsed backwards onto the carpet.

The partial granola bar Glinda had eaten earlier threatened a resurgence when she saw the distinct lump in his head, the twin trails of blood that welled up from his nostrils.  His body lay limply, in an unnatural pose, one arm flung wide and the other sandwiched between his body and the floor.  His out-spread legs fell lax, toes pointing at each other.  Chin drooping, mouth open, the tip of the man’s tongue shined with fresh blood.

Fighting back breakfast, she nudged him with a foot, then repeated the action, harder, but he simply lay there, as if dead.

Had she killed him?  She could feel the blood rushing from her head, and her vision narrowed to a precarious pinprick—all she could see before her was the unconscious man, bleeding, his face already bruising.

She faltered, and the lamp fell from hands that could no longer feel. Reaching out, Glinda steadied herself on the wall, her thumb inadvertently striking the switchplate and turning on the multicolored lamp hanging in the corner.

From the corner of her eye, she could see the Colonel, standing outside the door with what Glinda forced herself to recognize as the toilet roll holder in one hand, the zat gun in the other. 

Without really meaning to, she gestured towards the man on the floor between them. “I hit him.”

Sam stepped forward, her feet coming to a stop near the man’s head. “I see you did.”

“I hit him.”  Glinda squelched the hysteria that bubbled up like cheap champagne.  “He was going to go into the bathroom, and had that zat thing, and so I grabbed the lamp and I hit him.”

“Glinda, you did the right thing.”

“But he’s hurt.”

“He would have hurt us.”

“He’s bad.”

Glinda had the inane thought that she’d never been reduced to monosyllabic communication before, but found more genteel speech quite beyond her at the moment. Thankfully, the Colonel didn’t seem to notice.  She slid the panel closed behind her and nudged the man with her own bare foot, and, apparently satisfied that he was, indeed, beyond consciousness, she stepped over him and closer to Glinda.

“Yes, Glinda, he’s bad.”  Toeing the lamp aside, Sam gently set the toilet paper dowel on the floor, and tucked the butt?—end?—tail?—of the zat gun into the stretchy waistband of her maternity jeans. “And you did the right thing.”

“Oh, my goodness.”  Was all Glinda could reply.

But the Colonel had obviously been through this sort of thing before. She placed one hand on either one of Glinda’s arms, forcing her attention back to the present. “Glinda, I know that you’re a little bit shocked just now, but I need you to focus.  I need your help to tie this man up.  There are still people upstairs, I think, and they might be wondering where he is.  We need to hurry.”

“Goodness.” She blinked several times, fighting back the ridiculous urge to giggle.  Her fingers suddenly started tingling, and she discovered she’d been clutching her hands into fists.  Releasing the tension, she wiggled them experimentally, then forced herself to be still. Breathing deeply, she looked up, and found her strength return as she looked into Sam’s clear, intelligent eyes. With one long, last tremble, she imagined the General’s face.  Imagined his joy in seeing his wife again, his pride in an administrative assistant who could perform with bravery in the face of danger.

She was Glinda Baldrich, for heaven’s sake!  She had withstood more Generals than any other single secretary in the history of the Pentagon support staff.  She had once earned one hundred and ninety four points for the word ‘conifers’ on her last play in a Scrabble tournament, crossing two triple word scores, a double letter space, and using all seven of her letters.  She had just coshed a villain on the head with a brass lamp of very dubious origin. 

She was the administrative assistant to the General in charge of the security of the entire planet Earth! 

Reaching deep down within herself Glinda Baldrich found her mettle—discovered, after sixty-seven years, the kind of woman that she really was.

A Warrior.

And this time, when she met the Colonel’s clear blue gaze, she did it with power. “Let’s get this show on the road, Colonel.”

And she wasn’t a bit surprised when the Colonel grinned, cocking an eyebrow. “You go, girl.”


	6. Flashes

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Flashes_ **

****

 

“You sure you don’t want me to follow you back home?”

Jack hesitated for an instant before shaking his head. “No.  We’ve done all there is to do tonight.  Until someone calls with demands—” he turned towards Daniel and sighed more deeply.  “Until then.”

They sat in Daniel’s car in the enormous Southern parking lot of the Pentagon. The General’s SUV glinted next to them in the combined light from the moon and the ambient glow from surrounding buildings.

“We could still call the police.”

“We’ve discussed this.”

“Yes, Jack, we have, and you’ve shot down each idea I’ve tabled.”

“Because it wouldn’t do any good.”  O’Neill put his hand on the door handle, gripping it in tense fingers. “The cops would be more clueless than we are. We’ve already called the security office at the mall.  There was no footage of anything suspect anywhere on the property.”

“So you’re just going to wait.”

“I have a feeling it won’t be for very long.”  Jack’s lips thinned.  “Whoever has her will want something sooner rather than later.”

“And Miss Baldrich?  If she’s with Sam—”

“Sam will keep her alive.  You know how good she is at that sort of thing.”

Daniel nodded.  After a bit he sighed. “I do know.  But Sam also has other things on her mind just now.”

“Daniel—don’t remind me.”  Jack scowled. “If that weren’t the case, she’d have had protection.  She’d still be carrying that Glock I gave her for Christmas last year.”

“Remind me again why she isn’t?”

“Lead.” The word seemed to explode forth. “Something about possible lead ingestion and harmful effects on development.”  His hand made a vague gesture towards his abdomen before falling to his lap. “Fetal development. At least that’s what she said.”

Daniel nodded once, then adjusted his glasses on his nose.  “You don’t sound too convinced.”

But the only answer was the low rumble of a car passing behind them in the parking lot. They both watched through the rear view mirrors as the sedan made its way around a curve and towards another area in the huge sea of asphalt.

Daniel’s voice emerged—gentle, prodding without malice.  “Jack—are you upset about the baby?”

Again, the night fell in deep silence around them.  The General shifted in his seat and finally, after a long period of thought, cleared his throat.  “Not upset.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t think this would be an issue for us.  And after Charlie—”

Daniel raised his chin and stared straight forward out into the night. Jack appreciated the silence, using it to gather himself.  With his thumbnail, he picked at something on his pant leg—a snag in the fabric of his trousers. Picking at it didn’t help.

If he was to be honest with himself, something he’d been trying to do more lately, he hadn’t been strictly thrilled when the test had come up positive. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was closing in on the end of his sixth decade with frightening speed. Perhaps it was the known commodity that was his life—he knew the horrors that existed around them, and was reluctant to bring an infant into this world.  Could be that he’d just wanted to keep her to himself—as he hadn’t been able to do for nearly a decade. 

Still, he’d asked himself many times why he couldn’t just ease himself into the same cautious optimism that his wife was exuding.

Because she was happy—truly happy—about the baby.  He recognized, with a stab of guilt, that she’d been tempering her own reactions in view of his reticence.  And the fact that she hadn’t once complained about the nearly omnipresent morning sickness had been telling—she’d always been willing to accept his comfort whenever else she’d been injured.  His making of her second breakfast each morning had been his only attempt at acknowledging that something extraordinary was even happening.

The shopping trip today was to have been her first attempt at preparing for the impending arrival—she’d finally gotten to the point where she’d decided to do things on her own. 

He knew that she’d borrowed some things from Vala.  Already Sam’s body had changed, thickening in places, become fuller, softer.  She’d been almost painfully thin after her time on the Hammond—the worries of leadership had taken a toll on her—but he had made the mistake the other day of reminding her that she needed to button up her jeans, only to belatedly recall why she couldn’t. He’d come home from the Pentagon that evening to find a huge bag of singularly odd clothing scattered across their bed.

Jack couldn’t even say for certain how far along she was.  Four months?  Five? The thought rankled. He should know these things. Should _want_ to know these things. 

“After Charlie—what, Jack?”

The General closed his eyes against a surge of pain.  “I just thought I wouldn’t get another chance at it. Hoped I wouldn’t get another chance at it. Since I did so well the first time.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re going to be a great father.” Daniel looked sideways at the other man, his expression kind, sincere.  “You’re great with my Ava and Zoe.  And you’ve always been the one most able to relate to kids we’ve come across.”

“Some would say that’s because I _am_ a child, Daniel.”

“We both know that’s not true.”  Daniel reached across the center console and poked Jack in the arm.  “You’re going to be fine.”

“And what if she isn’t?”  This was the fear—the dread.  “What if she doesn’t survive?  Or if the baby doesn’t? And I’ve never said—” He couldn’t even finish the thought—his throat had constricted. 

“We’ll find her.”  This from a man who had seen too much in his life for such simple optimism to hold sway. How Daniel managed to maintain that kind of faith, Jack couldn’t imagine.  But still, it was the archaeologist turned curator that said, “We _will_.”

But Jack didn’t have anything else to say—couldn’t muster up a trite phrase in response. So he reached out and pulled the handle the door and let himself out.  Unfolding himself from the leather seat, he tossed a brief wave backwards and walked towards his SUV, digging his keys out with a hand that was shaking.

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

By midnight, the DC and surrounding area traffic had settled from its normal frenetic pace into one of more calm, intentional hurry. 

At midnight, Jack pulled into the rear parking structure of his brownstone.

As of midnight, Sam and Glinda had been missing for more than eleven hours.

That last part, he tried not to think about. 

Ascending the few steps to the back door of his house, Jack inserted a key into the lock and turned it, only to find it was already unlatched. He glanced backwards to where his car sat, in the double parking space, to find that he’d been right—it had been empty when he’d arrived.  Reaching around to the back of his belt, he unsnapped the holster there and withdrew his Beretta. With his thumb, he flipped the safety off, and slowly, as quietly as possible, chambered a round.

The hinges didn’t squeak as he pushed the door open.  He slid inside sideways, then closed it behind him, intent on stealth—not wanting outside lights to give him away. The back hallway stretched before him, shadowed, silent.  To his immediate right, a narrow arch led into the kitchen, and further down, a larger archway opened into the dining room.  To the left, twin sliding doors obscured the laundry closet, and a long row of built-in cupboards marched along the wall mid-way down to where the main entry spread out towards double front doors surrounded on all sides by thick panels of decorative stained glass.  Directly to the left of the front doors, a staircase opened, then curved upward and around, so that from the doorway, the banister framed the hallway and entry. A door at the base of the stairs hid a full bath, and another, a guest bedroom.  The largest of three arches on the right side framed the way into the main living room, which was also accessible through the dining room.

Holding the Beretta in both hands and pointed downward, Jack took a cursory look around the kitchen before creeping down the hall towards the dining room, which proved similarly vacant.  Pausing in the hall outside the living room, he listened in the stillness for a tell—any sign of who had entered his home, but the air lay flat, and heavy, and nothing disturbed the almost crypt-like quiet.

His foot hit a loose board in the reclaimed wood flooring, and the resulting squeak seemed louder than a bullhorn.  He flinched and then regrouped, rounding the corner into the living room with an expedience he’d forgotten he possessed.  A large sofa ran along the wall, twin chairs flanked a dark wood table in front of the large bay window in the front of the house.  On the far side sat an antique upright grand piano.

Atop its bench, his fingers skimming noiselessly along the ivory keys, sat a dark haired man, white shirt gleaming in the dim light, his jacket lying next to him on the padded seat. 

“I have been waiting for your arrival, O’Neill.”  The man struck a discordant tone on the piano.  Waiting a bit for the sound to dissipate, he then looked over his shoulder at where the General stood, the gun now raised, finger on the trigger.  “I had worried that you would not come.  I began to wonder where I would venture from here.  How I would find you in a city seething with so many people.”

“This is my house, Ba’al.”  His tone even, Jack reached down deep for control, when all he wanted to do was take the shot. “Where else would I go?”

“That it is.  And you must answer me that question.  I have been here for several hours, and you just now appear.”

“I’ve been out.”

“Yes.” Nonchalantly, Ba’al rose, scooting back the bench with a movement of one foot.  Rounding the seat, he turned to face the General, casually dropping his hands down into his finely tailored pockets.  “Looking for your wife, I suppose.”

“What do you know of it?”

“Oh—well. Less than you would imagine.” Ba’al smiled, his beard making a dark swath across his shadowed face.  “Although I’m sure that with me here, in your house, on your turf, so to speak , you must be convinced otherwise.”

“If you’re anywhere around, and my wife is missing—you can bet that I’m thinking you have something to do with it.”

Ba’al tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowed.  “General O’Neill.  So much has passed between us that I would like to consider us to be friends—”

Jack snorted.  “Not a chance in Hell, Ba’al.”

“All right then, if not friends, something—shall we say—less than enemies.”

“If you have my wife, you know that’s not possible.”

Ignoring the weapon trained on him, Ba’al reached for and grabbed his suit coat. Throwing it over his shoulder, he reached into a pocket and withdrew a piece of paper.  “The funny thing about it, General, is that Ba’al might have your wife.  I just don’t happen to know it yet.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Another smile, this one rueful, flashed across the Goa’uld’s features. “Surely you recall that I have not been— _just_ myself lately?”

Jack groaned.  The barrel of his gun dropped slightly as he straightened.  Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he sighed.  “Not quite alone, yet, are we?  Still accompanied by your coven of clones?”

“I must admit it wasn’t the best move.  Cloning oneself causes more problems than it solves.  I’m certain you can imagine the resulting chaos.”  Ba’al shrugged.  “But then, I wasn’t in charge at that point.”

“Who was?”

“The First one.”

“The _real_ one.”

White teeth flashed in a wide grin.  “Make no mistake, General, we are all real.”  He turned, and, locating one of the twin Queen Anne chairs, moved towards it. “All of us are seemingly perfect copies of the First one, implanted with seemingly perfect copies of the First Goa’uld.”

“Let me guess—something has gone wrong.”

“Most of the clones are dead.”  Ba’al laid the paper on his lap, resting his forearms on the padded arms of the chair.

“Most?” Jack’s eyes narrowed, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards.  “That’s a good start.”

“A few of us survived.  Some took refuge here on Earth, others found passage off this planet and established strongholds on others.  Most have since been located by your people or by the Jaffa.”

Jack cocked his head to one side, peering through the shadows at his intruder. “So the Ba’al that we de-snaked on that Tok’ra planet—”

Ba’al nodded, steepling his fingers near his chin.  “He was the First.  And he is, indeed, dead.  We have long since dispensed with the rest of the numerics.  All of the clones who remain consider themselves to be Ba’al, as do I.”

“So all that’s left are clones.”

“Yes.” Ba’al crossed an ankle over his knee, laying his jacket over the arm of the chair.  “Although to say ‘all’ is something of a misnomer for the situation.”

“Why? Are you the only one left?”

“Indeed not, General O’Neill.”

Jack lowered his weapon to his side, his finger still firmly on the trigger mechanism. Stepping more fully into the living room, he moved around the couch, stopping at the coffee table directly in front of the Goa’uld.  “How many of you are there?”

“That I know of?”

Jack opened his mouth to answer, but a ringing in his pocket stalled him. Lowering his free hand, he dug out his phone, flipping it open with his thumb and raising it to his ear, his eyes catching the patient acceptance in the Goa’uld’s expression. He frowned.  “What?”

“General O’Neill.”

“Ba’al?” At O’Neill’s answer, the Ba’al in his living room grinned and offered up another nonchalant shrug. Jack sighed, keeping one eye on the Goa’uld in his living room, and an ear on the one in his phone.

“The same.”

“What do you want?”

“I should be asking you the same question.”  There was a smile in his voice—traces of that condescension that always rubbed Jack just exactly the wrong way.  “After all, I have something that you want.”

Jack’s annoyance instantaneously became rage.  Clenching his jaw against the urge to shout, he merely sat silent, listening.

“Are you interested in finding out more?”

“I’m interested in getting her back.  And Miss Baldrich.”

“Who?” The clone on the other end shifted, and something made a sharp, metallic sound.

“Miss Baldrich.”

“Ah—the old woman.”  Again, the tone carried with it an almost sing-song tone.  Mocking. “To tell you the truth I didn’t pay much attention to her.  She was never the—target—so to speak.”

“She has nothing to do with this—I suggest that you let her go.”

“Oh, I don’t believe I shall.”  Evident within his tone, the gleeful way he was speaking, the Ba’al on the other end was enjoying himself.  “After all, I shouldn’t wish to give up any bargaining chip.  There is something that I want entirely too much in exchange.”

“And what would that be?”

“A device—you know the one, I am certain.  My sources tell me that you have been informed that it has gone missing.”

“The Telchak box.”

A short pause echoed on the other end of the line as something shifted in the background.  “You do know of it. It’s always pleasant to discover that one’s information is correct.”

“Don’t you have it already?”  Jack watched as the Ba’al in his living room stood and rounded the chair, standing in front of the bay window, his hands clasped behind his back.  “I mean—it’s missing—you’re on Earth.  Those two events seem infinitely connectable.”

“General.” The word dripped across the connection. “Surely you know that there is more than one of me.  Sadly, this is a fact that I have not yet been able to rectify.”

“Tell you what—I’ll find the other one, and put the two of you in a cage, and you can beat the crap out of each other.  That there is some damn fine rectification.”  Jack struggled not to wince as Ba’al laughed. That particular sound made him fly back to a gravity device, and vials of liquid fire that burned all the way through a person.  He fought to control his breathing before continuing.  “And besides, what makes you think that I know where the other Ba’al is?”

“It only matters that you find him.  He has the Telchak device.  If you want to see your wife again, or the old woman, you will seek out the clone, and retrieve the box. 

“And if I don’t?”

“Oh, dear, General.”  Ba’al’s human voice dropped low, and gravelly, hinting dangerously at the Goa’uld within. “I’m positive that you already know the consequence for failure.”

His patience in short supply, Jack cut to the chase.  “Where are you?”

“I will keep you informed.  Suffice it to say that the women are alive.  They are being held where it is clean, and warm, and they will not be harmed so long as I see progress.”

“What kind of progress?”

“I will keep watch.”

“How?”

“Do you still doubt?  I am a God.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.”  Jack’s fingers tightened around the phone.  He tamped down the desperation that he felt and issued what he hoped sounded like an order.  “Give me more information. I want to talk to Sam.”

“You must realize that is impossible.”

“Why?”

“Find the clone, General O’Neill.  Find the box.”  Now the voice radiated deadly seriousness.  “Bring them to me, and we will exchange.  Your women for my items. Do we have a deal?”

Jack’s jaw clenched tight.  Closing his eyes briefly, he ducked his head.  “Apparently.”

“Good.” A squeak sounded in the background, as if the Ba’al on the phone had tilted forward in an office chair. “I knew you could be amenable. I look forward to an update as to your progress soon.  I will call. Make sure you have your phone handy, yes?”  And abruptly, the connection ended.

Jack turned the phone and stared at the little screen.  The number had been blocked—no doubt bounced off so many towers that it would not be traceable.  He snapped the little device shut and shoved it back into his pocket.

“Was that the other me?”

“Yeah.” Jack glared at him in the darkness, searching out signs of anything useful in his countenance. “He says that you have what he wants.”

“Ah, now.  That is where he is wrong.”

“So you don’t have the Telchak device?”

Ba’al walked slowly forward, around the coffee table until he stood directly to the side of the General.  He didn’t look at him before he suddenly raised his hand, showing Jack what he held.

About the size of a postcard, the paper was covered with formulas. Equations ran roughshod over the surface like the writings of a maniac.  Jack stared at it, then looked sideways at the Goa’uld.  “What’s that?”

“It is the means by which to take the Telchak device and create something better from it.”

“Like what?”

Ba’al’s lips curled upwards.  “General. Please don’t play the fool. Both you and I know that your idiot routine is nothing more than an act.”

Jack’s eyelids flickered.  With a suddenness that surprised them both, his laden hand shot up and the muzzle of the Beretta pressed against the side of Goa’uld’s neck, his finger tense on the trigger. “I have the shot, Ba’al. And I’m just about pissed enough to take it.”

It was the clone’s turn to flinch.  Dark eyes suddenly flashed golden in the dark as he turned his head to look at the General.  “Surely you realize that we cannot live indefinitely without assistance.”

“You mean without a sarcophagus.”

“We were created quickly, without the intent of perfection. Like the Kull warriors, our purpose was to act on behalf of the First one, and then to die when it came our time.”

“So you’re flawed.”

“I would say more mortal than anything else.”

“Come on, Ba’al.”  Jack lowered the gun. “Where is it?  Your twin on the phone said that you had the box.”

“I thought that I could get it.”  Ba’al shook his head.  “I created an intermediary using the same methods in which I and my brothers were created. Once the outer shell was formed, I inserted a cloned symbiote.”

“Another Ba’al, just within a different body?”

“Yes. Only this clone was more useful. I had secured a sample of his DNA, so the rest seemed to be fairly simple.  He would be able to go places that I or the other clone could not.” Ba’al scratched with the backs of his fingertips under his chin.  “Only I didn’t succeed quite as well as I’d hoped.”

Jack glanced up at the ceiling, searching for inspiration.  “Because he’s double crossed you?  He wants the device for himself so that he can be the most powerful Ba’al?”

“See?” The Goa’uld grinned again, his attempt at levity somewhat strained.  “You are much more intelligent that you give yourself credit for being.”

Jack glared at the other man while he ran through the information he’d gathered in his head.  It only took a few moments for the light to dawn.  “Dare I guess?”

“I don’t know, O’Neill.  Dare you?”

His sigh expressed more than he really wanted it to.  “You’re willing to help me get Sam back, but only if I help you get rid of the other clones.”

Ba’al cocked his head to one side, a wry expression on his face. “With so many Ba’als around, General O’Neill,” the Goa’uld’s mouth relaxed into an easy semblance of a smile. “It is indeed fortunate that you possess the ability to juggle.”


	7. Glowing

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Glowing_ **

 

 

She’d given her pantyhose to the cause.

Of course, they’d been run anyhow, somewhere during her kidnapping and captivity. Glinda had been grateful that the Colonel had turned to the side as she’d shucked out of them and her half-slip. With a swift movement of the rotary cutter blade, Sam had torn the nylons asunder, then wadded the slip into a ball.

They’d used the lamp cord to truss up the unconscious man’s legs, and then flipped him over with a tremendous heave and secured his hands with half of the stockings. The other leg had been used to hold the slip firmly to his mouth—Glinda believed that the accoutrement was known as a ‘gag’.  To her it looked like the enormous man was foaming like some rabid bison—but that was certainly due to her laundry prowess, and not to any presence of disease on his part. Her unmentionables were just _that_ white.

“You know what, Glinda?”  Sam’s quiet voice broke through Glinda’s thoughts.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“As much as I hate to have you in this mess with me, I’m really glad that you’re in this mess with me.”

Glinda ducked her chin at the smile that glimmered across her features. “Well, ma’am.  I’m glad I’m here, too.”

“Really?” Sam began tucking things back into her pockets and Glinda’s purse.  “I would imagine that you would be angry that I guilted you into lunch this afternoon.”

Without thinking, Glinda glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Yesterday afternoon, actually, Colonel.”  She held out her arm for Sam to see.  “It’s past midnight.”

Sam grinned. “Okay, then.  Yesterday.  When I saw you at the mall, I couldn’t resist asking you to lunch.  And I’m glad that you took pity on me and accepted. I hate that you’re here—but I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

“I imagine that my purse has been more helpful than I have been.”

To which the Colonel raised her brows.  “Your purse didn’t take down a man roughly the size of a Angus steer with a lamp. I’d say you’re the hero, here.”

“Bison.” Glinda replied, without really meaning to.  “I was thinking he looked more like a bison.  Something about the hair and the lack of a visible neck.”

The Colonel’s quiet snort cheered them both.

Glinda watched as Sam adjusted the wide-hemmed shirt she wore around the bulge that was the zat gun.  If she were to be strictly truthful, she’d been waiting for an opportunity to get to know the General’s wife a little better.  She’d been friendly, if not close, with each of the wives of the men she’d served—always having considered it part of her responsibility to put them at ease as she’d aided in the work their husbands had accomplished. In her younger years, when her silver hair had been a cheeky auburn—many a wife had been threatened by the well-mannered, efficient girl she’d been.  Age-old stereotypes about secretaries and bosses abounded, and it was natural for some women to be nervous. 

Glinda wasn’t one to toot her own horn, but she still found herself to be quite popular among certain crowds.  If only most of them weren’t on oxygen.

Ah, well.  Such was life. She turned back to the Colonel. “It wasn’t pity.”

“Mm?” Sam paused in shoving the rotary cutter back into her pocket.  She looked up, a question playing across her fine features.

Glinda took a deep breath and continued.  “It wasn’t pity.  I’ve been wanting to meet with you in a different setting than in the office.”

“Oh?”

“I really had gone to the mall for a reason—it was Block of the Month day at the Quilter’s Bee, and I needed to get my block and buy a new rotary cutter. When I saw you there, I decided that it was time for us to become better acquainted.  That’s why I placed myself within your field of vision.” She smiled, remembering her own machinations. “Because I deduced that if you wanted to speak with me, you would.  And then we could become better friends.”

“So it was a plan.”

Glinda had to consider for just a moment before she decided that the Colonel was teasing.  “Not a plan, exactly. I consider it providential karma.”

Sam laughed to herself.  “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?  A little mixture of metaphors?”

“Not particularly.”  Glinda shook her head, her silver curls glinting in the multi-hued light of the hanging lamp. “Who knows from whence all good comes? We can never presume to know the exact reasons for our blessings, nor the sequence in which they should be awarded.”

The Colonel’s expression turned thoughtful, then a tidge sad.  She lowered her eyes and stared briefly at the carpet, and Glinda noticed how she concentrated on small movements—the deliberateness she took in adjusting the placements of things in her pockets, her preoccupation with the elastic in her waistband.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Colonel.”  Glinda couldn’t help herself.  She’d always held her bosses and their families in high regard, but these two—General O’Neill and his wife—mattered to her in a way she’d never felt before. She took a step closer to Sam. “Are you all right?”

Still looking at the floor, Sam nodded.  She smoothed down her blouse, her fingers hesitating just for a moment on the slight fullness at her midsection.  “I will be.”

Glinda’s heart broke a little.  She had never had the opportunity to experience that which the Colonel currently traversed. Neither had she carried the fears of the circumstance.  The worry that something was wrong that couldn’t be repaired.  By the secretary’s calculations, and having seen the initial ultrasound photos of what she _still_ thought resembled a lima bean, the pregnancy should be in its nineteenth week. Being the thoroughly prepared woman that she was, Glinda had researched the week by week progression of fetal development. According to her friend Maryanne Badger, who had personally birthed seven children and currently awaited the arrival of grandchild number twenty-three, most people would have another sonogram at this point in order to determine gender, as well as to check on various health concerns.  Glinda didn’t believe that the examination had yet occurred—surely the General would have taken time off for that, but he had been in the office all day each day in the past two weeks. 

So she already knew the answer before she asked her question. “Have you determined what you’re expecting yet?  Boy or girl?”

Sam stiffened, then shook her head.  “No, not that I haven’t been given the opportunity.”

“Then why—” Glinda rarely left sentences unfinished, but the Colonel clarified before she could complete her question. 

“Because of my age, my obstetrician wants me to be monitored more closely, but I admit to being a little stubborn about that.  I’m not fond of doctors, and kind of resent being labeled ‘of advanced maternal age’.  So, I’ve been insisting that they treat me as just any other first timer.  We’ve got the ultrasound scheduled for next week. Thursday makes twenty weeks.”

“Halfway.”

“Yeah. I’m kind of in shock at that. So much left to prepare.” Sam’s brows rose as she sighed. She nodded towards the sliding door. “But before I do anything else, we have to get out of here.”

Glinda found it fascinating to observe as the Colonel gathered herself—there was such intimacy in watching the other woman seemingly discard the poignantly insecure mother-to-be and don the armor of the toughened and experienced Air Force Colonel.  Even her face changed, the set of her jaw, the hard edge that took over the delicate blue of her eyes. This was Soldier Sam. The woman who had defeated more evil than had any gaggle of nuns. 

“So what, pray tell, is the plan, Colonel?”

Sam took one last look at the man they’d bound and gagged.  They had rolled him to the side of the door, where he still lay placid, for all intents and purposes dead to the world.  The only evidence that he still lived dripped slowly from his nose. Dead men didn’t continue to bleed.

“We’re going to go upstairs and try to get out.  Hopefully, once we get outside, we can find a car that’s unlocked, or get a signal on your cell phone.”

Glinda nodded, reaching out and grasping the handle of her bag. “And what if none of that is possible?”

“Well, we get out of Dodge.”  Sam made one last check of things before turning the light off.  “There has to be a road somewhere.  Maybe we can steal some shoes and just disappear. I don’t want to start a war here. Ba’al has most likely hired mercenaries to protect him.  It’s possible that he’s gotten a contingent of Jaffa from somewhere.  We don’t have the ability to take that on. So our best bet is just getting away and then bringing back the cavalry.”

She slid the door open, and Glinda found herself gazing up at the transom window above with a great deal of apprehension.  Yes, she was a Warrior.  But her particular kind of warrior felt more potent with a better plan than that currently posited by the Colonel.

That no more light gleamed through the transom told her that, in all likelihood, the other occupants of the house had gone off to sleep.  Or perhaps they had taken up positions around the door and were preparing to capture or shoot them immediately as she and the Colonel appeared. She felt herself pale again, and bravely resisted the urge to chew on her bottom lip.

“So, the upshot, Glinda, is that we need to move quietly, quickly, and be ready for anything.”

Nodding, the secretary tried to put her war face on. 

Sam reached under her blouse and palmed the zat gun, raising its eerie, snake-like head with a single tap of her finger.  “Then let’s go.”

Stepping past their conquered captor, they ascended the staircase. They stood at the platform at the top for long, tense moments, listening, as Sam’s nimble fingers tested the knob. Luckily, Glinda’s seam ripper and the stylus weren’t needed again, and the handle turned open in blessed silence. Sam held a finger in front of her lips as she jockeyed for position on the landing, her left shoulder flush against the door, her body protected by the dense wood.

Glinda eased in behind her as the door opened.  Breath bated, teeth clamped together, she watched as, inch by inch, the room was revealed.  She could see well around the uplifted zat—it was a large, farm-house kitchen. Sidling through the doorway, they emerged into the room.  Moonlight flowed through large windows that stretched from wall to wall over a long array of cabinets and a set-in double basin sink.  Few appliances cluttered the surface of the counter, and the Roman shades on the windows had been left tightly gathered near the wooden valances.

A refrigerator hummed directly to Glinda’s right, and a long gleam in the moonlight revealed itself ultimately to be large island in the center of the room.  Once her eyes adjusted to the shadowy lighting of the moon, she could see a U-shaped set of built-in cabinets, with an opening in the far right-hand wall that led to a darkened area that Glinda thought could be a dining room.  In the wall to the left was a white door, gaily decorated with a sprigged curtain gathered in the middle with a jaunty ribbon.  Through the square panes of glass behind the curtain, Glinda could see a patio, and further, a wide expanse of lawn limned white in the moonlight.

With a motion of her hand, Sam indicated that Glinda should stay put, then the Colonel crept off to investigate the darkened room to their right. Standing in place, Glinda regarded the room.  In the daytime, the kitchen would be welcoming, and bright.  The counter tops appeared to be formica—the appliances well-worn and used. Beneath her feet, she recognized linoleum rather than the more fashionable tile or wood.  A dark shadow in the center of the island soon became visible as a basket full of fruits.  For some reason that surprised her. 

While she could understand not wanting to improve upon a previous owner’s decorating, she’d never expected an alien villain to fancy pineapple.

Peering off into the dark, she caught no sign of Sam returning, so she took a cautious step forward.  Drawing the purse open, she reached into the basket and withdrew some of the smaller fruits—a few apples, and a rather green pair of bananas.  A single orange.  These she placed carefully in the depths of her bag.

A step backward allowed her to recognize a dark shadow on the counter under the hanging cabinetry as a breadbox.  She painstakingly slid the lid open and withdrew a deli bag full of bolillo rolls, which she added to the commissary in her bag.  Opening a cabinet above revealed several bottles of mustard, which she eschewed, and a few cans of Vienna sausages, which she snagged and bagged. She felt not a little like either Bonnie and/or Clyde—whichever one had done the robbing and plundering while the other stood guard.

A sharp noise behind her caused her to jump, and, frantic, she closed the cupboard door and looked around, anxiously fighting to control her sudden inability to breathe properly.  A glance towards the darkened passageway revealed no trace of Sam, but another sound forced her around the island and back to the doorway, ready to flee down the stairs again, until she forced herself to calm down and think.

She knew that sound—that multi-layered clunking, and that whizzing sound. She fought past the fear to correctly identify the noises.  Place where she’d heard them before.

The refrigerator—its automatic icemaker.  The water moving rapidly through the hoses to refill the ice machine.

She placed a hand on her heart to make certain that it still beat within her chest—that it had not jumped out and escaped on its own.  Blinking rapidly, she took a series of deep breaths and was intensely grateful when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Colonel Carter appear around in the opening at the end of the cabinetry.

Sam moved silently along the linoleum floors, and Glinda watched as she made a cursory check of the shadowed items on the countertops.  She lifted something out of a decorative crock near the stove, then reached for and pulled something else from what appeared to be a butcher’s block closer to the bread box.  Glinda felt slightly embarrassed when she realized she hadn’t even thought to consider taking weapons. 

Some Warrior she made.  Perhaps she’d been thinking of attacking someone with the bananas.  How very, very foolish of her.

But Glinda’s self-recriminations went unnoticed by the Colonel, who had beckoned her from across the island, and was now heading towards the outer door.  Glinda took a moment to close the panel which led down to the basement before following Sam, who had grasped the knob and was turning it.

Glinda hadn’t realized her breath had caught again until she’d seen the door swing open—with the slightest hint of a squeak of its hinges.  Another unlocked door.  Apparently when one _was_ the evildoer, one didn’t need to protect oneself _from_ the evildoers.

They fled out of the open door and onto the porch, then down the steps and onto the cool grass of the lawn.  A lawn which blatantly lacked anything behind which to hide.  Grass, nothing more than grass—a dandelion here or there, to be expected when a homeowner was bent on galactic domination. It was probably difficult to convince one’s hired thugs to go down to Lowe’s for the Weed and Feed.

They could see around most of the yard—at least on that side of the house. The lawn extended about a hundred feet or so, before disappearing into a line of tall trees.  White fencing surrounded the outer perimeter, and outlined an area to their left that obviously had been intended for vehicle parking.

Unfortunately, no vehicles currently resided there.  Sam soft-stepped through the grass on the side of the house, ducking below the lower edges of windows on that side, until she’d reached the opposite corner.  Gathering the knife and whatever other tool she’d collected in the kitchen in her left hand, she readied the zat with her right hand, taking a few preparatory breaths before poking her head around the corner.  After a second, longer look, the Colonel motioned Glinda over with a jerk of her head.

The coast, apparently, was clear.

“Are you comfortable with the knife?”

Glinda glared down with some suspicion at the cleaver.  Wickedly sharp, it shone blue in the moonlight. She shifted her attention to the other tool. Also metal, this was a handle with a square head on one end, along which orderly rows of tiny pyramids marched up and down.

A meat tenderizer.

“Well, Colonel, I’m not certain I’m quite up to either slicing and - or dicing,” She reached for the tenderizer, grasping it in a firm hand. “But I think I’ve already demonstrated a frightening propensity for bonking people on the head.”

“That you have.”  The Colonel adjusted her grip on the knife, allowing it to dangle from ready fingers at her side. “There’s a barn over there. I don’t see any cars near, but they might be using the structure for parking.  Let’s go there and see what we find.  I can’t see any lights, so I’m hoping it’s deserted—we can use it to for cover while we try to phone Jack.”

“A hidey hole.”

Sam’s teeth flashed in the night.  “Right.”

Glinda exhaled, experimentally moving the meat tenderizer in her hand. Well balanced, it swung easily at her slightest movement.  A worthy weapon.  Eminently suitable for coshing noggins. 

At Glinda’s short nod, the Colonel turned and took another tactical scan around the yard.  Apparently satisfied, she set off at a quick jog, her bare feet making dark indentations in the dew-silvered grass.  Glinda followed, focused on keeping up—grateful that she’d never allowed herself to become completely sedentary.  Although she didn’t follow a strict exercise regimen, she nonetheless had always believed in keeping one’s self in some form of physical fitness.  She preferred karate to yoga—something about deliberately posing one’s self so that one’s largest muscle hovered in full view of God, His angels, and the Nation smacked of the tacky.

Feeling certain that they would not be able to traverse the lawn without being spotted, it pleased Glinda to find herself proven wrong as they reconnoitered in the eaves of the barn.  The grass had petered out about a yard away from the structure, but Glinda refused to complain about the hard gravel digging into her feet. 

As barns went, the structure seemed ordinary in every way, down to its reddish coloration.  It sat around two hundred feet from the house, its front double doors facing the home’s side. Glinda expected the Colonel to try to slip through the huge doors, but was surprised when Sam urged her to continue following along the side of the building and around to the back. There, next to a pair of doors that mirrored the ones on the front, a normal-sized entrance sat, untended, and true to form for the rest of the compound, unlocked.

Sam had already cracked the door, and stood peering into the darkness within. Holding the zat in front of her, she pushed her way inside, her back angled towards the wall. Like the excellent learner that she purported herself to be, Glinda followed, emulating the other woman’s pose, one hand securing the bag to her shoulder, and the other holding the meat tenderizer aloft.  She fervently prayed she wouldn’t have to use it.

The barn seemed noisy after the stillness outside.  The faint hum of electrical energy floated about—computer fans whirred, and other noises reminded her of the humming of refrigeration units. She’d been expecting farm equipment—perhaps some live-stock—but all that she could see were stainless steel cabinets and racks.  Every shelf seemed to be full—boxes, and notebooks, and glass jars which held things that Glinda found to be unidentifiable, although they appeared to be organic.  As they passed behind some racks, she averted her gaze when a floating item reminded her a little too closely of an eyeball.

From the center of the—laboratory?  Glinda struggled to identify into exactly what the barn had been converted—a faint light source back-lit everything else.  Rounding the bank of shelves behind which they had entered, Sam pulled up short and scanned the room.  When she turned back to motion Glinda around, too, her expression had become one of violent distaste.

In the center of the barn, surrounded on all four sides by stainless steel cabinets, shelves, and counter tops, was a huge steel box.  Mounted on a dais, dozens of wires snaked their way under the shelves and attached themselves at various points on the box. A glass panel in the top revealed the source of the faint, bluish glow—the box seemed to be lit from within. It seemed innocuous enough—a simple rectangle—Glinda’s neatly ordered mind assigned a possible use for the item.

Whispering in the ambient light, Glinda said as much.  “It looks like a deep-freeze.”

But the Colonel shook her head, biting her lip, her eyes huge and worried. “It’s not a freezer, Glinda.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Unfortunately, I think I do.”  The Colonel stepped forward, her shoulders visibly drooping.  In the blue dimness, the faint bruise on her cheek where the Goa’uld had hit her seemed to capture the light from the box and glow, as well. Sam sighed and looked over to where the secretary stood, barefoot on the wooden boards of the barn floor.

Glinda glanced from it to the Colonel.  “Sam?”

Colonel Carter hesitated only briefly before stating flatly, “It’s a sarcophagus.”


	8. Brighter

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Brighter_ **

 

 

“A sarcophagus.  You mentioned that in your conversation with Ba’al.”

But Sam wasn’t listening, she’d stepped forward towards the device. “Oh, this isn’t good.”

The sarcophagus sat in the center of the room, approximately ten feet of space lay between it and the encircling furniture.  The glow lit enough of the surrounding area that Glinda could see clearly as Sam walked the entire way around the box, finishing on the opposite side of Glinda from where she’d started.

“This _really_ isn’t good.”

“Didn’t he say that he still needed some sort of item—he was hoping to use us to induce the General to get it for him?”

Sam knelt, laying the knife down on the platform as she prodded at something on the side of the box.  Glinda squinted in the dimness of the barn to see a panel of some sort, a key pad and several other buttons illuminated near the base of the contraption, just above the dais. With a metallic squeak, the panel opened to reveal an empty drawer about the size of the printer on Glinda’s desk back at the office.  Omnously vast, the only contents of the drawer seemed to be capped off wires and some odd bits of what looked like crystals.

“Is that where the device should be inserted?”  Glinda found her natural curiosity to be somewhat more potent than her fear for some reason.  Perhaps she was becoming accustomed to cloak and dagger situations.

But the Colonel had lifted her fingers to her lips, giving rapt attention to the minute details of the technology before her.  Only when the secretary fell silent could she even tell that Sam was muttering behind those long fingertips.  She spoke more to herself than to Glinda, her tone taking on the hurried pace of inner thoughts made audible.  Taking a step closer, Glinda could just make out her words.  “I thought it was theoretical.  I never imagined that he’d be this far.  He’s got the basic components—truly all he needs is the Telchak device.”

“Colonel.” Glinda stepped cautiously forward, the meat tenderizer ready within her grip.  Curious, although still none too certain about this device that sat so benignly in the center of this room, she stopped a yard behind Sam. “What should we do?”

Sam’s voice fell silent.  For long, tense moments she simply stood at the box, staring at it as if _Pandora_ were engraved on its side.  “That’s a good question.”

Glinda’s heart fell.  “Colonel Carter—what exactly does this do?  From what I remember of eighth-grade Social Studies, weren’t the pharaohs of Egypt buried in sarcophagi?”

Sam looked up, her eyes wide.  “Yes—well. Sort of.”  She leaned forward and peered into the glass on the top of the box, then stood back up straight.  Her face muddled through a few expressions before she found the right one, apparently, eyes narrowed, mouth a tidge askew.  “How much have you learned about the Goa’uld?”

Glinda folded her arms in front of her, the meat tenderizer resting in the crook of the opposite elbow.  “The General calls them snake heads and some other phrases that I will not repeat.”

“Yes, well.”  Sam tipped her head to one side, brows high.  “I know those phrases. Said a few myself, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m sure when one is constantly confronted with bad behavior in some form, a little must rub off from time to time.”  Glinda nodded with acceptance.  She’d felt the need to curse as well, when the situation warranted. Why, just the other day, she’d caught herself just as she’d begun to say, ‘For crying out loud’. If _that_ wasn’t a sign that she was paying too much attention to her boss, Glinda wasn’t sure what was.

She barely caught the Colonel’s wry expression before Sam had whisked it away again.

“Anyhow, the sarcophagi are used by the Goa’uld to regenerate. They live within their hosts for hundreds of years, and the device helps them to be able to maintain the body’s health and vitality, as well as its youth.”

“So the Goa’uld don’t age?”

“Well, they do, their aging just isn’t on par with our own.” The Colonel returned her attention to the box, and the wires within the drawer.  “Telchak’s device is a box that Daniel Jackson found in the jungles of Honduras.  It’s the basis for the Fountain of Youth mythology, but we discovered that Telchak was actually a Goa’uld, and the device possesses some rather unfortunate side effects.”

“Incontinence and sexual dysfunction?”  Glinda’s eyes immediately shot wide.  Raising her empty palm to her face, she shook her head slowly from side to side. “I’m so sorry—I can’t imagine where that came from.”

“On the contraindications list of every medication _I’ve_ ever taken.”  Sam’s dimples appeared with gusto.  “As Jack would say, ‘there’s hope for you’.”  Sam turned back to the sarcophagus, her expression lighter.  “Anyway, if a dead human with no symbiote is placed in the presence of the box, reanimation will occur.”

“Reanimation.” Glinda tried to imagine exactly what that entailed, but the only image that came to mind was Frankenstein’s monster from the movies she’d seen as a child.  “I’m assuming you’re not talking about zombies.”

The Colonel peered up at Glinda from beneath her over-long bangs. “I’m afraid so. Sort of.”

“So this device can bring the dead back to life.”

“Yes—but the person isn’t brought back to normal.  The reanimated dead being is reduced to his most base form—animalistic, almost.”

“Evil.”

Sam nodded, looking back at the drawer.  “Yes. Quite evil, from what I hear. I wasn’t there when they found the box the first time.  Although I heard that the results were more than a little disturbing.”

“Well, then, we need to make certain that the device doesn’t make its way here.” Glinda spread the handles of her bag and reached for the middle inner pocket, ripping open the closure with a distinct _scwhipp_ sound. Grasping her phone, she pressed a button with her thumb, grateful that they had not depleted the battery while using it as a flashlight.  She squinted at the sudden flash of brightness on the screen, focusing on the upper left corner of the display where she, thankfully, found a few bars. She showed it to the Colonel. “I can call the General. I have a signal.”

Sam stood.  “How much battery?”

The tiny charge icon to the right of the screen blinked on and off. Glinda felt herself deflate a bit. “Not much.  Maybe enough for a single call.”

Sam considered, then rounded the dais again and set off towards furthest set of shelves, poking around in the books and papers.  “There might be a land line somewhere.”

“I haven’t seen one—and I didn’t see one in the kitchen.”  Nonetheless, Glinda turned and headed for the opposite bank of shelving and began moving papers and objects aside in search of something useful. “And it might be another problem that we can’t tell him where we are, in any case.  After all, we don’t know exactly where we are.”

“You said rural Virginia.”

“I only deduced that because of the horses.”

Sam stood upright and turned to face her where she stood across the barn. “The horses?”

“On the wall in the basement room.  There were dozens of pictures of horses.  I noticed that many of the pictures had rosettes on them—awards given at horse shows and races. But one photograph in particular caught my attention. It was Secretariat. Secretariat was bred on a ranch in rural Virginia—in the northern part of the state, in Caroline County. Somewhere near Fredericksburg. It looked as if the photograph was original, so it is a safe assumption that it was a gift from the breeder or owner of the stallion.  In which case it could be that we are near his foaling site.  The racing horse community is very insular.”

It appeared that the Colonel had been struck quite speechless by this pronouncement. At Sam’s blank look, Glinda found herself explaining.  “My father was a racing man.  Loved to ‘bet on the ponies’, as he put it.  I watched Secretariat’s final race in nineteen seventy-three with him in his hospital bed after his second stroke. By then, I was already working as a typist and clerk within the Pentagon, and I was struck by the horse’s name— _Secretariat_. The story goes that he was named by the secretary of the stable where he was foaled.  So you can imagine that I felt quite a connection to the beast.”

Glinda was rambling, and she knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop. “So I became something of a buff. That’s how I knew that this place might be in Caroline County.  Like I said—the community is rather closed-off.  The Goa’uld living here hasn’t redecorated the place, so those photographs and paintings must have been left here by the previous owners.  Perhaps an aged breeder who had no progeny to which to leave his property.  Perhaps a foreclosure. One never knows.” She trailed to a stop, embarrassed by her vocal meanderings. 

But the Colonel had been listening intently.  “So, where is Caroline County in relation to Washington DC?”

“Fifty or so miles.  Maybe further, depending on exactly where in the countryside this farm is located.”

“And there are dozens of backroads, hundreds of small farms.”

“Yes, I would imagine so, ma’am.”

“Glinda.” Sam’s long braid shifted from side to side as she shook her head slowly.  “You are a wonder.”

“I beg to disagree, Colonel.”  Glinda shook her head, her brows gathered towards the middle of her forehead. “We still have to be found—and with no land line, and no idea of exactly where we are, that will be a frightfully tall order.”

But Sam, apparently, had already thought that eventuality through.  The rapidness of her response indicated as much. “He could put a trace on the signal.”

“I don’t believe my phone has special signaling abilities of any sort. Don’t these contrivances bounce their calls off of towers of some kind?”  Glinda turned the phone towards her and regarded it with a bit more interest.

“From what I understand, since the attacks on September 11, a lot of cell phones are equipped with an emergency power pocket that is capable of calling ‘911’ even with a low battery or if service has been disconnected. And some phones have GPS locators that will allow remote access to the phone’s location.”  Sam pointed with the hand that had previously held the knife. “Even if we just get one call off—Jack could try to set in place a trace.  We have—um—” she paused, searching for the appropriate word, “friends that could help him.”

“Not to mention that ship that’s currently orbiting the Earth.”

Sam’s brows rose.  “You pay good attention, Glinda.”

Glinda felt her cheeks flush with heat.  “I wouldn’t be much of a secretary if I didn’t.”

Sam nodded in agreement.  As if something important had been decided, she straightened, adjusting the zat in her grip. “Well, before we deplete the battery completely—let’s look around a little more.  There are some doors over there—rooms, maybe—I’ll check them out while you look around here for a phone.  A computer with an internet connection would work, too.”

Glinda slid the phone into the pocket of her skirt, watching briefly as the Colonel disappeared between two banks of cabinets.  She turned back to her shelving units, moving things aside until she came to a cupboard whose doors were shut tight.  With a look behind her, she determined that the Colonel was occupied on the other side of the barn, and reached out a hand to touch the smooth, steel surface of the doors.  It seemed to be warmer than the other surfaces she’d been touching, and—she searched for the properly descriptive word—vibrating.

Hesitating only for the briefest of moments, she grasped the U-shaped pulls and drew the doors wide.

It took a moment for her to understand what she was viewing—but by then the gasp tickling in the back of her throat had already welled up. Dropping the tenderizer on the floor, she covered her mouth with both hands and muffled what she could of the noise she couldn’t seem to completely squelch.  And she felt helpless and decidedly un-warrior-like in admitting that the creatures she had found disgusted her—that the snake-like beings writhing within their individual tanks were the embodiment of every nightmare she’d ever suffered.

She forced her mouth to shut, willing her breathing to normalize. Footsteps behind her alerted her to the fact that the Colonel had heard her.  Ashamed, Glinda reached down for her quasi-club, using the action to disguise the fact that her hands were shaking.  When she stood again, Sam was there, and somehow, the Colonel knew that an arm around her shoulders and a slight squeeze were just what the older woman needed.

“Are you okay?”  The question came out quietly, followed by another squeeze on the shoulder. 

But Glinda could only nod.

“The first time I saw one, I nearly threw up.”  Sam simply stood there, offering quiet support.  “It was our second trip through the ‘Gate, and we’d just met Teal’c.  He explained that he was Jaffa and then showed us his belly pouch and the symbiote just kind of popped out. I remember thinking that it was the grossest thing I’d ever seen.”

In the blue light radiating from the box behind them, the symbiotes wriggled in their tanks, caressed by bubbles that rose up from the aerators in the bottoms of the glass enclosures.  These, then, were the Goa’ulds.  These lithe dervishes with their fins and gaping tooth-ridden mouths were the creatures that possessed the power to burrow themselves into a person and completely overpower them from within.

“I’ve gotten used to seeing them.  Although I have to admit it’s a bit disconcerting to find a whole cupboard full of them in a barn in Secretariat country.”

Glinda could finally speak.  Swallowing hard, she nodded at them.  “What are they doing here?”

“Well.” Sam shrugged slightly, her face a mask. “My guess is that they’re all Ba’al clones.”

“Why so many?”  Her voice cracked on the question, so she steeled herself and asked it again.  “What could be the purpose of making so many of them?”

Sam made an odd sound in the back of her throat—a sound so characteristic of her husband that Glinda was momentarily startled.  “Goa’ulds are born with genetic memory.  These symbiotes will have the memories of their creator. Also, personality is transmitted through the cloning process.  My guess is that these symbiotes are being held in case one is needed for implantation.”

Glinda felt her eyes fly wide open.  “Not into us?”

“That may be the plan, but I doubt it.  Ba’al would have done it by now, if that were his intention.”

Glinda allowed that information to sink in.  Swallowing again, she counted the vials—twelve. Twelve unsuspecting people could be taken over by the snakes thrashing about within this cupboard. She thanked whoever had been watching over them thus far that there weren’t only ten of the monsters still swimming in the closet.  She felt the weight of the meat tenderizer swinging from her hand.  “Well, shouldn’t we dispense with them?”

Leaning forward, the Colonel peered into the cupboard, making closer observations. “These aren’t mature. They’re not ready for implantation.” With a final look, she reached out and grasped the door handles, easing the twin panels shut. “I think I know what the plan is for at least one of them, though.”

Glinda really didn’t want to ask—she wasn’t sure that her ticker could handle any more shocks.  But she followed anyway, as the Colonel rounded the dais in the middle of the room again and led her through the shelving units towards the door that she’d left standing ajar. She opened the heavy panel further to reveal a larger tank simmering in the center of a room about the size of the average bathroom.  Inside, floating on his back within the greenish water, was a short man.  Pale, and completely bare, he was heavy of body and face, with a scraggly beard and mustache.  Glinda noted that his hair floated in dark, thin strands around an already balding crown.  He should have been dead, submerged as he was in that tank, but Glinda had the rather disconcerting feeling that he was, instead, quite alive.

“Do you know him?”

“I do—although not this particular incarnation of him.”

“Who is he?”  Glinda knew that she needed to ask, although she wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to know the answer.

“His name is Doctor Bill Lee.  He’s a scientist with the Stargate Program—he recently took over directorship of research at Area Fifty-one.”

“ _The_ Area Fifty-one?”

Sam nodded.  “And it appears that the Ba’al who captured us has been playing around with cloning of more than just himself.”

“So this isn’t actually Doctor Lee?”

“Nope. It’s a clone.” Sam shook her head, this time, her focus on the tank, and the floating man inside it.  “Someone’s mixing up a whole new batch of bad guys.”

“To do what?”

But Sam’s voice wasn’t the next one Glinda heard.  It came from behind them, and Glinda had heard it before. In the basement, as a matter of fact. Just a few hours before.

“Yes Colonel, why don’t you elucidate us?”

Glinda jumped, and automatically swung about with her meat tenderizer. The tool hit a bar on a steel shelving unit, the impact reverberating up her arm and down her spine. The noise rang loudly through the barn, and from somewhere, an eerie, alien sound surrounded her, and a flash of brilliant blue flared to her right.  She ducked, dropping the heavy bag to the floor and untangling her arm from the strap. Her right shoulder braced against some shelves, she stole a glimpse between some notebooks to see a little man—an eerily familiar little balding man—holding a zat out in front of him, a gleeful expression on his face. 

“Colonel Carter!”  That voice bellowed again in the eerie blue glow from the sarcophagus.  The same voice as from the basement—but in a distinctly different body.  “Colonel Carter! I have no wish to harm you!”

A quick glance behind Glinda told her that Sam had taken refuge somewhere—most likely behind the tank in which this man’s corporeal twin floated. And, proving Glinda right, Sam’s voice emerged from behind the greenish glow of the Doctor Lee-filled water. “Then what do you want, Bill?”

“Surely you know that I am not Doctor Lee.”

Glinda heard Sam mutter something crude behind the tank.  A look in that direction provided Glinda with a view of Sam, lying on her side, slowly creeping closer to the corner of the contraption, using her arm and presumably a knee for propulsion.  She paused long enough to yell, “I can’t call you all Ba’al. So I think I’ll just stick with Bill.”

Turning back towards the little bearded man, Glinda reached a hand up and adjusted the books so that they provided a steady window through which she could see. He still held the zat gun at ready, only now he was doing something odd—reaching behind him and drawing forward a bag of some sort.  Black, with a drawstring top, it appeared to be inordinately heavy.  With his attention so occupied, his hand lowered slightly, Glinda wished that she had the zat currently possessed by Sam.  She had a clear shot.  And she was just angry enough to actually take it.

And the thought truly stunned her—that she knew that she would fire the weapon. At a complete stranger with a ludicrously heavy drawstring bag.  She glanced down at herself—her skirt hiked up to her thighs, bare feet dirty and still damp around the edges, her blouse mostly untucked from her waistband. Heaven only knew what her hair looked like—and she hadn’t touched up her lipstick since lunch. A stubborn piece of grass clung to one toenail.  For some reason, that random blade felt like a badge of honor.  She wouldn’t have removed that blade of grass from that toenail in that moment for all the world. 

Goodness, yes, she would have pulled a trigger right then.

“So, Bill—is that the Telchak device you have there?”

“You always did think you knew everything.”

Sam’s voice took on a patient tone—as if she were dealing with multiple small children.  As she spoke, she inched closer to the edge of the box.  “One of the others cloned Doctor Lee to get access to the box, right? But you didn’t know that the other two Ba’als wouldn’t let you live to use it.  And unfortunately, Ba’al clones aren’t quite up to the standard of the Asgard quite yet.  You’re breaking down, and you need a fix.”

“Don’t presume to know the plan.”

Glinda glanced behind her to see Sam creeping out from behind the tank. Crawling, she emerged warily from behind the greenish box, still hidden from the faux Doctor Lee’s view, even though Glinda could see her clearly.  She moved uneasily, stiff, as if injured.  Glinda watched as she propped herself on one hand and then turned to sit, her back against the tank.  She was breathing hard, holding herself stiffly, making only the most tentative of movements.  Obviously, she’d gone down hard when the alien weapon had flashed.

“Oh, I think I’m smart enough to figure out the plan of a third generation Ba’al.” Sam somehow still managed to sound strong.  “You’re like Gameboys. Different on the outside, but the innards are all the same.”

“Your pithy Earth metaphors mean nothing to me.”

“Too bad.”  Sam awkwardly scooted closer to the door of the room, still using the tank as cover. “It really is pretty accurate.”

“Regardless.” The clone had situated himself near the still-open drawer that Sam had left gaping in the sarcophagus. “It is fortunate that I have found you before the other Ba’al discovered that you were gone.  I may keep you alive if you prove useful.”

“I’m not going to help you turn it on, Bill.”

“Not in exchange for your own life, no.”  His pause stretched out between them, meaningful and dense. “But what about the life of your companion?”

“She has nothing to do with this.”  Sam’s voice became calmer—almost dangerously so.  Glinda turned to see the Colonel’s eyes narrow, become hard. “Miss Baldrich is completely innocent in all of this.”

“Ah, but Colonel Carter.”  With a loud clunk, he dropped his burden into the drawer in the sarcophagus. “I wasn’t referring to Miss Baldrich.” Standing, he hefted the zat again, rounding the dais until he stood within a few yards of where Glinda still crouched behind the shelf.  “I was referring to your other companion.”

His smile exposed straight teeth, amidst a slightly crooked mustache. “The one you carry within.”


	9. Strobes

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Strobes_ **

 

 

“So how exactly does a human such as yourself convince a woman such as Colonel Carter to marry you?”

After an initial attempt at stopping himself, O’Neill finally gave in to the inclination to roll his eyes.  The lights from the oncoming cars glared at him, anyway—he needed a break from staring at the road.

He should have been tired, but wasn’t.  He should have been frantic, as any husband in a similar situation would have been. But he wasn’t any husband, and this situation wasn’t similar in any way to those faced by your basic Ward Cleaver. As far as he knew, neither June Cleaver nor that perky Brady woman had ever been kidnapped by Goa’uld clones. If they had been, he wouldn’t have watched anyway.  He wasn’t much for science fiction.

Jack supposed that ‘frantic’ wasn’t in the cards for this particular op, anyway. Too much strategy and clarity of thought were lost when people gave over to blind fear and worry. Jack couldn’t permit himself to feel either emotion.  They weren’t allowed.

Seriously peeved, however, _was_.

Which brought him back to his companion.  Without looking sideways, Jack practically spit out the question. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Ba’al adjusted himself in the leather seat of O’Neill’s Expedition. He lolled rather than sat, one foot braced against the map pocket in the door, the other splayed towards the center console.  He’d unbuttoned the top button of his impeccably tailored shirt and removed his coat and tie. Settling in for the long drive, Jack assumed. The Goa’uld hadn’t shared the exact destination of their journey—Jack believed he didn’t even know it. He’d merely suggested in that obsequious way that so defined him that the General might want to head south out of Arlington.

So south it was.  And at just past one in the morning, other traffic wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as was Jack’s problem controlling his urge to plant a bullet in the canary-eating cat sitting in the passenger seat.  That urge was the main reason he found himself once again passing Reagan National and turning back onto Slater’s Lane. 

Daniel had not always been able to prevent Jack’s worst behavior. Their disagreements regarding the handling of sensitive situations had been legendary.  But as O’Neill got older—and hopefully wiser—even he was willing to admit that some Generals needed nannies from time to time. Especially now, when forced to team up with a being who had tortured him to death many times over. That it had been a different Ba’al responsible for that particular series of events didn’t make a rat’s bit of difference.  In the General’s mind, they all shared the same personalities, had memories of the same activities, and thus carried the same blame.

“I don’t mean to offend you, General O’Neill—but you’re, shall we say—a simple man.” The Goa’uld waved a hand airily—his long fingers flickering in the headlights of an on-coming car. “Colonel Carter is a complex woman full of mystery and intelligence.  There must be something quite special about you that would make her want to attach herself with such permanence.”

Jack pressed on his brake pedal as he pulled up behind a Pinto going nowhere near the speed limit.  His attention caught for a moment on the sticker attached haphazardly to the back bumper—it was one of those peacenik “Coexist” lines—and the General wondered briefly if the person inside had ever encountered true evil.  There were some entities that just needed to be conquered—with whom there was no possibility of peaceful kum-ba-ya-type-togetherness . It was the height of foolishness to think that you could make friends out of everybody.

He threw a glance sidewise at his passenger.  They’d been talking about Sam—about why she’d married him. “Maybe she just wants me for my body.”

Ba’al’s greased smile and raised brow echoed more loudly than words would have.

It took a few minutes to reach Daniel’s colonial, and only a moment more for the archaeologist to bound down the steps and lift the handle on the back door.  He carried a packed black duffel bag—which he tossed onto the seat behind Jack before climbing in to sit beside it.  The Expedition shifted a little as he scooted over to the middle seat and leaned forward, resting his arms on the backs of the front seats. 

“Hey, Jack.  Long time no see.” His expression carefully benign, Daniel caught the General’s gaze in the rear view mirror, and Jack knew without a doubt that he was being assessed.  “How’s it going?”

“Peachy.” Shoving the vehicle into reverse, O’Neill stamped down on the accelerator with enough force to send them all reeling as the Expedition jerked backwards.  Pulling the steering wheel hard to the left, he completed half a donut, then shifted into ‘drive’ and headed back out to the main road. “And you?”

“Good.” Daniel’s conversational tone felt incongruous in the darkened interior of the Expedition. “I figured you were going to call back, so I was up anyway.”  Turning towards the figure in the other seat, he smiled as only Daniel could—with that perfect mix of the genuine and the smart-ass.  “Ba’al. Nice to see you.”

“Daniel Jackson.”  The Goa’uld lifted one brow and cast a look over his left shoulder.  “It surprises me that you’re still alive. What a pity that Qetesh hasn’t slit your throat in your sleep.”

“Now, Ba’al.  You know it would take more than that to kill me.”  He drummed his fingers on the leather backrests of both seats, his face relaxing into a broad, sarcastic smile.  “And by the way, Vala sends her love.”

“The thought of that makes me sick.”  Ba’al returned his attention to the darkness outside.

“Okay, then.”  His brows high, Daniel met Jack’s eye again.  “Well, Jack. I brought what you asked me to.”

“Good. Thanks.”  With a cursory glance around him, Jack left the tree-lined lane and turned south again.  “Boot it up.”

Daniel shoved himself backwards, then reached for the zipper on the duffle bag. Pulling it open, he withdrew a laptop, which he balanced on his lap.  He popped the latch and lifted the cover, waiting a moment for the screen to blaze to life.  “Although I’m still uncertain as to why we’re looking for this.  Didn’t the SGC dismantle the compound they found in Colorado? Years ago, if I’m not mistaken.”

Ba’al answered.  “The First one had set up multiple laboratories.  After the Taur’i discovered the cloning operation, and dismantled the largest of the compounds, those of us left behind on Earth dispersed to the other properties. We were forced into hiding.”

“I’d have thought that you all would’ve gathered—there _is_ , after all, strength in numbers.”  Daniel moved his finger on the keypad, and a tiny ‘click’ sounded as he opened up his internet window.

“But the more of us there are together, the more likely that your military would be able to detect us.  Our energy signature increases exponentially the more of us there are gathered in one place.”

“So you split up out of self preservation.”  Daniel slid a finger under his glasses and rubbed at one eye. “Understandable. You Ba’als have always looked out for your own interests rather well.”

“Unfortunately, however, that is the same instinct that has precipitated this rather touchy situation.”  The Goa’uld glanced over his shoulder at Daniel, a wry smile on his face.  “As only one of the sarcophagi were ever built, and the military’s demolition of the original compound made the plans lost to us.”

“Shouldn’t you all have a genetic memory of those plans?”

The clone shook his head.  “Sadly, no.”

“Why not?”  O’Neill threw a look to his right.  “You seem to remember everything else.”

“We are only imbued with a genetic memory of that which preceded our creation.” The Goa’uld ran his knuckles along the cool surface of the window.  “We keep our own memories of events that have since transpired.”

Jack frowned.  “So?”

His face lit in the glow of his laptop, Daniel answered.  “What I think he’s saying, Jack, is that current memories are the sole property of the Goa’uld who has passed through those particular experiences. The sarcophagus blueprints—or whatever—must have been acquired after the clones had already been created.”

“As I said.  It is unfortunate.” Ba’al’s jaw worked tersely for a moment. “And my erstwhile brother has nearly completed the device, and is only seeking the final component in order to make it fully functional.”

“The Telchak device.”

Ba’al nodded.  “The same.”

“So that’s why he took Sam.”  Jack’s voice had turned flat.  “He figured that he could hold her for ransom.  He knew that I could get the device from Groom Lake.”

“Well, it appears that the new satellite relay is up and running.” Daniel lifted his head and leaned forward to pat Jack’s seat.  “Because I’ve got connectivity.”

“Gotta love modern technology.”

Daniel snorted.  “That’s funny coming from a Luddite like you, Jack.”

“Hey—I like gizmos as much as the next guy.”

“Yeah—especially when they’re helping you find something you’ve lost.”

The implications of Daniel’s words hung heavy, and anxious, in the air. For a long while, no one spoke, the whirring of the computer fan joining with the relentless churning of all 8 cylinders of the Expedition’s big engine. 

“Jack—I—” Daniel began, but trailed off into the darkness.  “I didn’t mean—”

But O’Neill stopped him, blowing an exasperated breath out between his teeth. “See what you can find out about Charlotte Mayfield.  We need property records. My guess is that she was the front man behind the land grab—her name should appear on real estate transactions.”

“Charlotte Mayfield?”  Daniel’s fingers paused momentarily before reseating themselves on the keyboard. “Isn’t she Goa’uld? I thought that she’d taken on the persona of Athena.”

Ba’al’s chuckle sounded harsh in the close confines of the car. “Charlotte Mayfield wasn’t taken as a host until after her usefulness as a lo’taur had run its course. The First one could not draw attention to himself by purchasing properties, so Miss Mayfield was commanded to do it for him.  She was only too happy to be of service.”  Ba’al raised and hand and groomed the closely cut hair on his cheeks.  “She was most obliging.”

“So, you don’t know where this compound is.”  Almost absently, Daniel asked his question, utilizing most of his attention for what flashed onto his screen.”

“I know that it is located in this part of the country.  It used to be what you humans call a stud farm.” The Goa’uld raised his brows suggestively, preening at the dim reflection he could see in the window. “It still would be had I been given its coordinates rather than my lesser brother.”

Jack groaned.  “Can we stop with the egotistical crap?”

“I am merely stating a truth.”  Ba’al gave a half-shrug.  “Some of us were created to a higher standard than others.”

It was Daniel that snorted, this time.  “Then why are you all breaking down?  Shouldn’t brand spankin’ new clones last longer than a few measly years without needing the rejuvenating power of the sarcophagus?”

Ba’al lifted a hand and toyed with his hair.  “Don’t presume that you could possibly understand, Doctor Jackson. Matters of this magnitude are not possible for a mere human to comprehend.  It’s quite remarkable that your species has been able to exist as long as it has with so primitive an understanding of technology.  ”

Jack’s arm flashed out _completely_ of its own volition.  O’Neill had no idea how the gun ended up in his grip, but one moment it was sitting in the compartment below the center console, and the next moment—there it was, pressed flush against the Goa’uld’s temple.  It hung there between them, Jack’s eyes flitting between the road and the ex-god at his side, as his jaw worked in an uneven rhythm.

“Jack.” Daniel’s tone voiced a quiet warning. “We need him, Jack.”

“I really _really_ hate being called primitive.”  The barrel rocked against Ba’al’s temple with the motion of the SUV.  “I’d try to remember, if I were you, that you are no longer a System Lord.  You came to me asking for help.”

The Goa’uld stared straight ahead into the night, only the lights on the dash illuminating his wide eyes, his tight mouth.  “I offered you my services.  Out of compassion.”

“Because you knew that if you didn’t, you wouldn’t ever have access to that box.”

“No, because you need something, and so do I.”

“And this is mostly your fault.”  Jack’s index finger tickled the trigger.  “You’re the one creating more problems.  An intermediary, you called him.  Don’t kid yourself that I’m too stupid to know what you meant.”

“I couldn’t have imagined the results.”  Ba’al’s eyes grew wider.  “How was I to know that he would venture out to possess it all on his own?”

“Because he’s _Ba’al_.” Jack spit the name as he would an epithet.  “That’s what you _all_ do.”

“Hey—come on.  Jack—give it here.” Daniel leaned forward and extended his hand, palm up, next to the headrest of the passenger seat. “He’s the only one that can fill in details for now—and he’s willing to help.  If you kill him, we’re stuck at square—well, not square one really—but we’re back near the beginning.”

Ba’al swiveled a look sideways, the Beretta making a divot in the skin on his forehead.  “I meant no disrespect, O’Neill.  I understand that you are concerned about the welfare of your wife, and only meant to make a mutually agreeable covenant between us.”

“Jack.” The backs of Daniel’s fingers skimmed Jack’s arm, his voice soothing.  “This isn’t the time.”

With a harsh, guttural, sound, O’Neill twisted his wrist and dropped the weapon into Daniel’s waiting hand.  He shifted in the driver’s seat, swiping at his face with his left hand as he replaced it on the wheel with his right.  His breathing had become ragged.

Daniel laid the Beretta down on the seat next to him, then clicked a button and refreshed his page.  As he scrolled through real estate records, the crease between his eyebrows deepened. “You know, Jack—you just said something that I don’t understand.”

O’Neill’s dark eyes leveled in the mirror.  His raised brow was enough of an invitation for Daniel to continue. “You said something about an intermediary.”

Jack’s scowl deepened.  “You might want to ask our little friend about that.”

Daniel’s attention turned to Ba’al.  “Okay. Then _you_ tell me about the intermediary.”

The Goa’uld frowned.  “It’s not often that the Goa’uld must admit their mistakes.  He was mine.”

“You created another clone?”

“The process is complex.”  The Goa’uld tilted his head towards the door and stared out at the passing mile markers. “But once we realized the limitations of the procedure, and the frailty of the copies, we knew that we had to introduce more into the equation.”

“New DNA?”

“Among some other things.”

“The sarcophagus.”

Ba’al’s nod was brief.  “We needed it to extend our lives so that we could—work out the bugs, so to speak.”

Daniel’s fingers clicked on the laptop keyboard as he started a new search. “So you went in search of someone who could offer you both DNA and access to the device you needed.”

“It was remarkably simple to accomplish.”  Ba’al sat up straighter in his seat.  “Our choice made frequent trips to Washington to liaise with the Pentagon. We merely met him one day on his way back from the airport and borrowed a sample.”  His fingers made a flourish in the air in front of him.

Daniel paused, sorting through the information.  “Why wouldn’t he have reported it?”

“He didn’t remember it.”

“Nice action you’ve got going there. Screwing with people’s memories again? Taking samples of human stuff for your own uses?”   Jack shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning up without humor.  “And you wonder why I keep having this overwhelming urge to shoot you.”

“He wasn’t harmed.  He was returned to the airport with no recollection of what had happened, and there were no marks—no injury. He couldn’t have known what had happened.”

“So you cloned him?”

“The copies are formed without any discernable personality.  They are merely fully-grown humans, without any imprinted experience.”

Daniel searched for the appropriate adjective.  “Infantile.”

Ba’al nodded again.  “Once the symbiote is introduced, the genetic memory is sometimes overwhelming to the new being. We tried to prepare the Goa’uld larvae for the implantation, but when he came to cognizance, he was disturbed by his new appearance.  He was not satisfied with the host body.”  He cast a rueful smile backwards at Daniel.  “At times, we can be a bit particular about our outer shells.”

“So he revolted against you and now wants to have complete control of all the cloning technology and the sarcophagus.”  Daniel used the back of his hand to shove at the temple of his glasses. “To right the wrong, so to speak.”

“You could say that they’re in a bit of a pickle.”  Jack slowed, coming to his turn off.  Exiting the freeway, he yielded to a semi, and then accelerated again.  “The new guy wants it all.”

“He is the one that has acquired the Telchak device.  He was specifically created for that purpose, and has been uncommonly successful.  Unfortunately, he also wants to keep the technology for himself.  And after contacting us to boast of his achievement, he then disappeared. Each of us needs the technology to live, and each of us wants to control it.”  Ba’al offered up one of his signature half-shrugs, the white of his shirt easy to note in the darkness.  “So we are at odds, you see.”

Daniel spent a few more minutes with his search before looking up again, shoulders hunched over the laptop.  “But Jack, didn’t Landry say that Doctor Lee had gone missing with the zombie box?”

“Yep.”

“So, there’s a clone out there in the image of Bill Lee.  But he has a Ba’al symbiote running the show.”

This time, Jack’s partial smile wasn’t as sarcastic.  He caught Daniel’s eye in the rear view mirror, tweaking a brow upward.  “The image burns, doesn’t it?”

Daniel sighed, even as he ignored Jack and continued with his thought. “And he needs to get to the sarcophagus in order to use the Telchak device.”

“We all need to get to the sarcophagus.”  Ba’al’s voice had gone down a register—reverting to the symbiote-preferred bass resonance. “That is the only reason why I have offered my services to you.”

“Yes, well.”  Daniel’s answer wasn’t really an answer at all.  Turning back to his screen, he busied himself with a specific record. “Charlotte Mayfield—M-a-y-f-i-e-l-d. Right?”

Jack looked over his shoulder.  “Did you get something?”

“I found a probate record, of all things.”

“Probate—as in—inheritance?”

“Yeah—apparently a Charlotte Mayfield was the sole beneficiary of an estate that entered into probate—um—thirteen years ago.  She took legal ownership soon thereafter, but it has never been listed as her primary place of residence.  It’s zoned for agriculture.”

“Just tell me we’re going in the right direction.”

“I’m Mapquesting—just a minute.”  His fingertips skimmed the keyboard as they waited.  “Um—it’s halfway between Fredericksburg and Doswell. It’s off the beaten path—it looks like it’s smack-dab in the middle of BFE, but yeah—we’re going in the right direction.”

“BFE?” The Goa’uld had missed the colloquialism. 

“Beyond Far Egypt.”  Daniel explained absently, skimming the information on his screen.  “There are other used for the ‘F’, but none usable around Ava and Zoe. I’m trying to quit—one of us has to be a good example, and Vala’s filter is broken.”

Gunning the engine seemed like a good idea, so O’Neill did.  The Expedition sailed through the night, eating up the miles.

But Daniel wasn’t finished.  His eyes narrowed, he looked up and used three fingers to scratch at his chin. “You want to know what I wonder?”

“What’s that, Daniel?”

“I wonder where the real Doctor Lee is.”  He paused, running his tongue over his lips.  “If the one that took the device is a clone, then the real one hasn’t shown up, yet. You said his wife said he’d been gone for a few days.”

Jack looked over at Ba’al, but the Goa’uld simply shook his head. “For this I have no answer. When we originally planned to create the sarcophagus, it was never our intention to permanently replace Doctor Lee within your facilities.  I can only assume that my brethren have conspired together on a new plan.”

“So we don’t know where he is.”

“No, Daniel, we don’t.”  O’Neill’s voice washed it all with the color of finality.

But Daniel had always been skilled at interpreting his friend’s deeper meanings. “So we’re up to three.”

When no one answered him, he did it himself.  “Sam, Miss Baldrich, and now Doctor Lee.”


	10. Sparks

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Sparks_ **

 

 

Glinda couldn’t help it.  She twisted her body to look fully at the Colonel.

Sam’s face had lost color, and a slight movement in her temple indicated the tight set of her teeth.  Her breathing had become unnaturally even, even the loose fit of her blouse wasn’t able to hide the set of her body. If Glinda didn’t know better, she would have interpreted that movement as an attempt to swallow a sob.

But surely she knew better.

Still, the Colonel refused to catch her eye, so Glinda found herself frowning and turning back to her vantage point.  From between the folders, Glinda watched as the Goa’uld toyed with his zat, his knobby fingers rubbing the gray, metallic head. 

“Come, now, Colonel.”  The Goa’uld raked his gaze over the darkened interior of the barn.  “You can’t keep away from me forever.  I know where you are, and I assure you that there is no way out.”

“You know me, Bill, I’m not going to just give up.”

Glinda jumped at Sam’s voice.  She turned her head again, and watched with trepidation as Sam scooted out towards the end of the tank, now nearly in full view of the Goa’uld.  She paused at the edge and reached into her pocket, withdrawing an item which she hid with a quick movement of her hand.

“Nor will I, Colonel Carter.  Not when you carry the means of my perfection.”

Glinda watched Sam process the statement, watching has her eyes widened, and then her face steadied again, her expression a perfect mask of serenity.

“I don’t know what you mean.  There’s nothing special about me.”  Sam looked up, purposefully catching Glinda’s eye.  With a nod of her head, she indicated the bag, and Glinda automatically reached behind her and clasped the straps, pulling them over her shoulder. Her fingers tightened on the handle of her meat tenderizer. 

“Oh, but there is, Colonel Carter.  And the ironic thing is that it has only just come to me.”  His round face relaxed into a crooked smile. “This was never part of the plan. Of course, having you here at all wasn’t part of my plan, but there it is.  I may as well make good use of you.”

“Bill, come on—I’m just your average Tau’ri female.  I’ve got nothing for you.”  But Sam had turned and was now on her knees, crouching as low as she could. The position could not have been comfortable, and Glinda thought that she saw the Colonel wince as she balanced herself.

“Genetics, Colonel.”  He took a step closer to where Glinda hid behind the cabinet.  “It’s all about genetics.  Just look at what body my brethren cursed me with.  They created me only for their own use—never with the intention to allow me to reach my full potential.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to help you fix that?”  Sam shifted again, until she was perched on the balls of her feet, and Glinda found herself mirroring the stance, balancing herself with a hand on the cabinet and the other leaning on her club—utilizing its tensile strength as a cane.

“Come now, Colonel.  Surely you know how we Goa’uld have exercised our dominance over human physiology. We created the Jaffa to incubate our young, and others of my kind have experimented throughout history with your species’ abilities in order to make a hok’taur.  I find myself in need of a stronger new host.  And here you are—just when I need you.  Ready to make a contribution.”

“I won’t give you anything.”  Sam scooted one foot forward, nodding when she noticed Glinda preparing for the next move. With her head, she motioned towards the back entrance—where they’d entered in the first place.

The Goa’uld in the center, and cabinetry gathered all around the sarcophagus, Glinda could see the wisdom in this action.  They stood a good chance of rounding the perimeter of the lab before their hunter could find an exit and give chase.  She tried not to concentrate too much on the words being bandied over her head—knew that Sam was keeping the conversation going in order to stall for the time needed to prepare for their escape.  But the chill creeping down her spine couldn’t be quelled with the knowledge that the banter, at least on one side, was being argued in earnest. This little balding man, Goa’uld though he may be, wanted something quite specific from the Colonel. Still, Glinda jerked when his voice drifted again—almost lazily—through the dimness.

“No, but my mind is racing.”  He turned his body slightly and ran his thick hand along the smooth surface of the sarcophagus.  “All those cells—so new.  So fresh. So perfect.  Wonderfully malleable.”

Glinda felt her eyes flare wide.  He couldn’t mean what it sounded like he meant.  Her hand slipped a little on her weapon as she turned and captured Sam’s eyes.

The Colonel’s expression was raw.  Pain, incredulity, and anger played in waves across her lovely face—her hand had slipped to her midsection, as her lips had tightened into white-edged line. From under the golden fringe of her bangs, her eyes were huge—wide—and they flashed with something that Glinda couldn’t fathom.  Like a feral beast protecting her young.

Somehow, the Colonel was still able to speak—no doubt it was her training coming in to play—and her years of experience. 

“They’ve been zatted, Bill.  As far as we know, those particular cells are worthless by now.”  But Glinda could hear the quaver in her voice—knew instinctively what those words had cost Sam to say.

“Then you’ll be cooperative as I remove them.”  The Goa’uld stretched out an empty hand—beckoning them out of hiding—the zat still held ready at his side.  “Just imagine the Ancient gene included in the mix.  What Goa’uld would not want the ability to control Ancient devices? Even the Asgard considered it.”

“The Asgard couldn’t make it work.”  Sam’s head peeped out from around the tank.  She took a quick scan of the barn and then righted herself, raising her right hand. Finally, Glinda could see what she’d been holding within her hand.  Held aloft, the blade of the rotary cutter gleamed a dullish green in the reflected light of the tank.  The Colonel had already flicked the lock on the handle, and grasped it with her thumb and pinky even as she wiggled three fingers, then folded them back down.

Reading the Colonel’s signs, Glinda readied herself.  She turned her body away from the Goa’uld, instead facing the far corner of the lab, where a narrow passage connected the area where she’d crouched for so long with the back entrance of the barn.  From the corner of her eye, she saw the Colonel turn, too, and Glinda remembered to take a deep breath. 

“You can forget that plan, Bill.  I’m not giving you anything.”  Stronger, now. The Colonel’s words accompanied her half-rise, and muffled the now-familiar sound of the zat head being raised.

But the Goa’uld had taken another step closer.  “Colonel Carter.  My patience is wearing thin.”

“So’s mine.”  Sam raised the first finger in Glinda’s direction.

“You are being most obstinate.”

Another finger rose, even as Carter’s voice carried across the wall of steel shelving. “Bill, Bill.  It’s what I do.” And then, with a swiftness that Glinda wouldn’t have thought possible, Sam flashed the third count and stood, motioning sharply at the secretary.

Glinda rose fully, her body hidden completely by the tall cabinet behind which she’d taken refuge.  Turning, she immediately started running—as well as her bare feet and stiff legs would allow her to run—towards the back of the barn, Sam’s footsteps staccato-sounding behind her.

The Goa’uld shouted in surprise, and then growled in anger, and Glinda felt the singe of a zat blast before she even heard the report.  She rounded the corner, stunned by how dark the narrow passage seemed after the ambient lights from the devices in the main part of the lab. Half-blind, the large bag banging against the cabinetry to her right, she stumbled towards the exit, where a faint sliver of moonlight painted a stripe of white on the floor.

The Goa’uld Doctor Lee leveled another blast towards them, and Glinda stumbled as heat licked at her shoulder.  A hand from behind caught at her, keeping her upright, and fairly shoving her towards their goal.  She lengthened her steps and made it to the door in two more long strides, pulling open the door just as she saw Doctor Lee round the shelving on the opposite side.

She knew she squealed—knew how undignified that sounded—and fought to keep her focus as the man barreled his way down the corridor towards them.

The grass felt clean and fresh against the soles of her feet. For the first time in the course of the sordid situation, Glinda was grateful not to have shoes on—her longish toes gripped the sod and helped her run faster.

A word and a shove from the Colonel behind her were all the direction she needed. Directly behind the barn, a thin stretch of grass led directly to a corral.  Beyond the gaping gates of the enclosure, a line of tall trees beckoned—offering escape, and a place to hide.

A sound behind her proved worrisome, and she chanced a look backwards, only to find herself swallowing a scream. 

The cloned Doctor Lee ran after them, his hefty body lumbering across the grass. And behind him, holding good old Earth handguns and not zats, two more men had emerged around the side of the barn and were also running towards them.  Glinda reapplied herself to her goal—aiming her body for the wide maw of the corral gate, grateful when she passed through into the sandy soil of the training yard.

A noise echoed behind her—and she tried not to place it—but when a second one sounded, she instinctively dodged.  She’d heard that noise before—that popping that had to be gunfire. Her already questionable breathing hitched up, and she gulped in breath after breath.

“Go!” Behind her, the Colonel’s voice issued forth harshly.  Glinda turned her head in time to see Sam raise her zat and squeeze off a few successive shots of blue fire.

But the men kept after them—faces determined, their weapons glinting black and deadly in the light of the moon.  And they were gaining on Glinda and Sam.

Glinda reached the other side of the corral and nearly screamed in frustration. Where the entrance had lain open, the exit fencing sat tightly locked.  Glinda shoved at the gate, knowing it was in vain, before hiking her skirt up to her hips and bending in half.  Shoving her purse through the space between the bars, she threw a leg over the middle bar and then squeezed herself through the opening, hopping slightly as she swung the other leg through.

Sam had reached the fence, too, and stood firing the zat until Glinda had attained the other side.

“Colonel! Come on!”  Glinda paused outside the corral, trying not to notice how near the men were to the entrance of the corral.  “Hurry!”

“Go! Just run, Glinda!” Sam’s shout pierced through Glinda, and she turned towards the woods, but the pounding of the men’s boots in the dirt of the corral forced her back to the bars.

Summoning up her courage, Glinda dropped the tenderizer, reached out and grasped the alien weapon between shots, wresting it away from the Colonel through the element of surprise and sheer determination.  She found the indentation in the handle that served as the trigger and, pointing it in the general direction of their pursuers, tightened her finger.

She’d been expecting recoil, and had, in fact, braced her body for it. But the device fired smoothly—the only indication that she’d discharged it at all being a slight tingle in her palm—presumably from the energy surging through the weapon. She squeezed again and again, assiduously ignoring just how very close the men had become, and how much louder the ominous popping had become.  She completely sublimated the sharp ‘ping’ she’d heard—even knowing it meant that a bullet had just ricocheted somewhere very near.

Glinda refused to think about what was actually happening—deciding instead that this was merely a horrendously bad dream.  That she wasn’t actually being chased by men capable not only of shooting at a gently bred, graciously reared secretary of advancing years, but also actually wanting to hit her.  Her orderly mind careened—desperate to put it all in context—but what possible context was there for this fear?  This rush of adrenaline and worry and anger?

Glinda snuck a look at the Colonel, who had placed a foot on the middle bar and swung over the fence, keeping her torso low on the bar.  She’d angled her body over and was preparing to drop to the other side when Glinda noticed her jerk—heard her sudden intake of breath.

And then she just slid, slipping off the fence top and landing on her side, her face little more than a contortion.

“Sam!” Glinda bent, then reconsidered and straightened, necessity forcing the Warrior to emerge again.  She took careful aim and fired once—then twice—finding the incongruous ability to smile when one of their pursuers crumpled in a dusty heap in the corral. The man’s companion slowed to make a quick check of his fallen comrade, and then, with a furied shout, continued on towards them at a steady pace, leveling his gun in their direction.

“Glinda—please—just go!”  The Colonel had sat up and was trying to stand, an ugly stain spreading across her pants near her knee. “I’ll catch up! You get out of here!”

But Glinda wasn’t about to leave Sam behind—and as if she needed to prove it, she stood straight even while the villain was striding vehemently in her direction with the ugly, ominous barrel of his pistol staring at her, and squeezed the trigger of the zat.  Every nerve in her body screamed at her to run—but for some reason, she needed to foil the cowardice that rose within her, and, taking a stand, she fired again. The second man dropped in a flash of blue.

“Glinda!” Sam had risen up on her one uninjured leg, and was pulling at the secretary’s skirt.  “Watch out!”

And as she combed the corral with her terrified gaze, she saw the fleshy copy of Doctor Lee approaching from around the outside edge of the enclosure, zat raised, an expression of fevered excitement on his bearded face.

“Don’t bother, Miss Baldrich!”  He smiled. “You’re only making things worse!”

He drew near rapidly—ten yards, then eight—his purposeful strides eating up the distance. 

Glinda raised the zat and tried to put herself in front of Sam, attempting to protect her, but the Colonel placed a hand on her side, and with a sharp effort, shoved her out of the way.  As she whirled out of the line of the clone’s fire, Glinda could see a bright flash of yellow, black, and silver whizzing past her, and flinched when she heard the sickening sound of impact.

Sam’s deflated body language told Glinda what she needed to know—the clone was no longer an immediate danger.  But the secretary turned because she needed to—because in the few short hours during which she’d been embroiled in this drama, Glinda Baldrich had come to realize that there were indeed, consequences for evil.  And the stout body laying in the grass demonstrated that fact—on his back, mouth opening and closing soundlessly while the blood poured out from around the rotary cutter embedded in his neck.  And although she wished for world peace as devoutly as the next beauty pageant contestant, she knew that this entity would have done any amount of damage necessary in order to fulfill his own desires.

And for that reason, she felt no compassion whatsoever at his pain.

And then with a little cry, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.  Because she was a little horrified at that discovery, after all.

“Glinda—we have to go.”

Turning a bit, Glinda could see that Sam had struggled to her feet, her pant leg now heavily stained with blood.  She steadied herself with a hand on the bars of the corral, her entire focus on the older woman standing just a step or two away from her.

“Glinda.” Sam said again, her tone stronger, more forceful.  “We have to go. Those guys won’t take long to wake up, and that little fight we just had wasn’t particularly quiet. Someone from the main house had to have heard that.  We have to go.”

She could only nod.  Turning, she held out an arm to the Colonel, who accepted the support without argument. Grateful for the first time in her life that she wasn’t petite, Glinda took a strong grip around the Colonel’s ribcage and helped her walk the short distance from the corral into the woods.

The grass turned sharp and brittle in the shadow of the trees. Beneath their feet, pine needles combined with other leaves and undergrowth to create a dense, rough carpet on which to walk.  Glinda, helping to balance the Colonel with her left arm, held the zat with her right hand, the purse sandwiched between their bodies.  Being the one who was not bleeding, nor in any other form of physical distress, Glinda tried to pick their way carefully through the growth in an effort to protect their feet, but it proved useless.  It simply wasn’t possible to see well enough to guard against the occasional painful branch or stone.  Within minutes, her soles were tender.

Silence surrounded them in the darkness of the forest.  Whatever nocturnal creatures that normally resided here had fled—probably due to the O.K. Corral-like gun battle they’d just participated in.  The woods seemed vast—yet close—and Glinda fought against an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. But still she walked, deeper into the abyss, grateful for the moments when the moonlight penetrated the canopy and shed its light before them.

“Are you okay, Glinda?”

They went two or three more steps before Glinda found the courage to answer. “I assume so.”

Ten steps later, she found more within her.  “How are you feeling, Colonel Carter?”  Why did her voice sound as if she were making charity visits at the Home? She inwardly cringed at her default stuffiness.

The Colonel’s words were immediate.  “I need to stop.  I need to see what the damage is, and figure out if we can find a way to bind it up.” Her voice emerged tightly—evenly—perfectly controlled. 

Glinda cast a look around and found a log some distance away.  “There.”  Gently, she steered them towards the log, turning awkwardly once they had reached it, lowering the Colonel to sit.  Kneeling in front of the log, she carefully raised Sam’s pant leg to her knee, squinting in the murky darkness to ascertain the extent of the damage.

“It’s only a deep scratch—the bullet must have just grazed you.” She looked up at Sam and, for the first time since their mad-dash escape from the barn, met her eyes. “It could have been so much worse.”

“And I deserved it.  I was an idiot.” Sam raised a hand to her face, swiping at her forehead in a gesture of self-recrimination.  “I tried to crawl through the bars like you had, but couldn’t bend over well enough.”

“Is your back injured, too?”  Instant was Glinda’s concern.

“No—it just felt like I was trying to fold myself over a basketball. It wasn’t terribly comfortable.”

Glinda’s mouth formed a tiny ‘o’.  “The baby.”

“I’m tall, so I hide it well, but bending over like that—” she faltered, shaking her head.  “How many recruits have I chastised for doing just that—for leaving themselves as perfect targets. The number is gargantuan.”

“You weren’t thinking clearly.  This circumstance is completely out of the ordinary.”

“Not for me, Glinda.”  Sam chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, her gaze flying upwards, to where a slight breeze had shifted the branches above them enough to let in a little starlight. “I’ve been doing this kind of thing for more than fifteen years, now.”

“How have you survived?”  Glinda truly wanted to know—devoutly hoping that there was some magic remedy for finding peace after such a time as this.  “I must admit to being in a little bit of shock.”

“I know.”  Sam reached out a hand and placed it gently on Glinda’s shoulder.  “You have been unbelievable through all of this.  I am in awe of you.  And we’ll be here for you.  You’re one of us, now, and we don’t leave our people behind.”

And suddenly, Glinda’s eyes went all blurry.  Surely it was from the dust in the air—the cool wind was fiddling with her nasolacrimal ducts—or her body was merely trying to replace some moisture lost over the past few hours.  The wetness she felt certainly wasn’t emotional.  And that trail she felt down her cheek most assuredly wasn’t a tear. Glinda Baldrich didn’t cry.

Sam was the one bleeding all over the ground—her pants torn asunder by an actual bullet.  She had the right to be upset, to need comfort.  Glinda, on the other hand, had sailed through the firefight unscathed, and had needed to be saved in the final moments by this wounded woman.  Glinda bowed her head in shame, her breathing shallow, her jaw tight.

“Glinda?” Sam’s hand moved on her shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”

But the secretary could only nod.  It felt as if something inside her were unraveling—as if over the past several hours she had been wound tighter and tighter, and all at once, in one single motion, the spring had sprung.

She forced back the rest of her tears, searching within herself for control. Hands shaking slightly, she wiped away the single drop that had come to a precipitous halt on her chin, then quashed a giggle that she was certain would have been inappropriate if not ludicrous. And all the while, she felt the Colonel watching her, judging her, gauging her responses. All the while she assessed herself, and found herself wanting.

“Glinda—you don’t have to be tough.”  Sam shifted on the log, stretching her good leg to one side.  “You’re not a soldier.  It’s okay to admit that you are feeling ambivalent—”  but the Colonel suddenly stopped talking.

Her absolute quietness brought Glinda to full alert.

The Colonel had sat straight up, a puzzled, incredulous expression on her lovely face. Slowly, as if she were afraid to break some spell, she brought her hand to her midsection, lifting her eyes to meet Glinda’s.

“What? Colonel?  Are you all right?”

And the Colonel grinned fully, then, on a log in the middle of godforsaken nowhere, her leg bleeding, pants torn, being chased by madmen and villainous aliens, accompanied only by a combat-naïve sexagenarian with a very large purse.

“Colonel?”

“I’m fine, Glinda.”  She looked down where her hand made a pale shadow on her blouse, then back up, her blue eyes meeting Glinda’s green ones.  “More than fine.”

“Are you sure?”  Uncertainly, Glinda watched as the Colonel nodded, her braid bobbing at her nape.

“I’m positive.  Glinda—I just felt the baby move.”

 


	11. Dawn

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Dawn_ **

 

 

“Is that too tight?”

“No, Glinda—it’s fine.  Thank you.”

Glinda sat back on her heels, surveying her handiwork. 

Although her trip to the quilt store had precipitated Glinda’s participation in this whole situation, it was also rapidly becoming an essential key to their continued survival.

Glinda had been trying not to think about one of objects of her errand the afternoon before—that new rotary cutter.  Her last view of it had been gruesome—the moonlight glinting on the protruding blade as it had quavered a bit while the Goa’uld’s blood welled out around it.

Again, she found herself forcing that image out of her mind with other, more pleasing, mental pictures.  For once, quilt math hadn’t been possible—it had been too topical, so to speak. So she’d searched for, and found, an acceptable alternative. 

Sean Connery currently flickered in the peripheries of her mind.  And luckily, Paul Newman had been called in for backup.

She had cleaned Sam’s wound as best as she could—they had both debated using the hand sanitizer as a cleanser, but then Glinda had remembered that she’d purloined some tiny packets of moist wipes from a seafood restaurant the week before.  She’d located them in the little bag with the crochet hook, then dug a little deeper until she’d found the tiny sample packet of Neosporin she’d gotten from the podiatrist at her last visit. Until they could find some soap and water, they would just hope fervently that the wipes and ointment could help to fend off any infection.  Although Glinda was still uncertain as to the amount of bacteria and contaminant material introduced by a single projectile.  Did one need to keep bullets clean?  The question boggled.

She’d used the broken seam ripper to cut a top-stitched pocket out of the interior lining of the bag, then folded it and tied it snugly to Sam’s leg using strips torn off a width-of-fabric quarter yard that she’d received in her Block of the Month packet.  The pocket had been chosen for its absorptive properties—the fabric having been folded over a piece of cotton batting before being sewn onto the lining piece. Although the batting was in the purse for reinforcement purposes, Glinda had surmised that the cotton would also be able to soak up at least a little blood.  She hadn’t been methodical as she’d ripped the piece out—she could make a new purse, but not a new Colonel.  So the fabric had been wrenched out of the bag with very little care, and pressed into service as the singularly stylish bandage that had finally stemmed the flow of blood.

The bullet had ripped a path across the outside of Sam’s leg just below her knee. A few inches up, and it would have impacted bone.  Any lower, and the natural swell of Sam’s muscle would have been enough for the bullet to actually have entered and done considerably more damage.  As inexperienced with bullet wounds as Glinda was, she figured that if one had to be shot, there couldn’t have been a much better place for it to have happened.

She’d said as much to Sam as she’d picked the pocket out of her purse. It was only when she’d looked up at the other woman that she’d noticed the Colonel’s pensive expression.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to make light of your wound.  I’m sure it’s very painful.”

Sam had jumped slightly, and refocused her attention on her companion. “What?  No—I’m sorry.  You weren’t. I was just thinking that I’ve said that same thing many times in my career.”

“You’ve been wounded often?”

“Yeah.” Sam watched as Glinda wrapped the fabric around the pocket-turned-bandage.  “Multiple times.”

“So this is just another ordinary day for you?”

“No—not quite.”  Her smile seemed turned inward.  “It’s just that when you’re in command, you concentrate on your team, and preserving as many people and resources as possible.”

“And now you’re thinking about the life of your child, too. And that means concentrating on saving your own life.”

The Colonel nodded, then quirked a brow upwards.  “And yours.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t obey you earlier.”  Glinda finished the final knot and chanced a look upwards. “I took that zat device from you and then you had no other weapon and were forced to throw the cutter and—”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

“What?” Glinda’s brows rose.

“That cutter thing.  I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll buy you a dozen of them.” Sam shrugged.  “I’m just sorry that you had to lose it.  I know it was something you’d been wanting.”

“Better the Olfa than either of our lives.  Although I’m not certain I’ll be able to look at another one in quite the same way.” Glinda glanced back down at the Colonel’s limb, reaching out to readjust her pant leg around the bandage. “You’re sure you don’t want me to cut it off?” 

They’d already discussed this particular issue—Glinda hadn’t enjoyed the idea of the Colonel’s walking around with the bloodied fabric flapping about. It hadn’t seemed sanitary. But Sam’s insistence on keeping it—the tear was negligible, after all—seemed tied to her mutterings about her legs matching the color of sour cream.  Glinda’s own limbs were pale, too, and quite noticeable under the hem of her skirt, but that hadn’t changed the Colonel’s mind one whit. Apparently, all was not equal when it came to translucent calves.

“Nope. No cutting.”  Sam moved her knee experimentally, wincing only slightly. “Wow.  That feels better.”

Glinda prepared herself for the next step.  “Now, let’s see your ribs.”

The order brought the Colonel up short.  “My what?’

Glinda fixed her with the same look she’d used on the Sunday School children she’d once caught coloring in the hymnals.  “When you fell in the barn—behind the tank-contraption.  You hurt yourself.  I’m presuming it was your ribs.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Are you certain?”

“Truly—Glinda.” She’d never heard the Colonel whine before, but that particular note came close.

“Colonel Carter.”  This was the tone Miss Baldrich normally saved for the hotshots from Motor Pool.

For a moment, the only sound was a slight whooshing of the wind through the trees, but then Sam shifted on the log again, and reached for the hem of her blouse. “Glinda, they should make you a General.”  As she turned, she peeked over her shoulder.  “You order people around better than Jack.”

“I’ve had more experience.”  Glinda peered into the darkness, her eyes skimming the pale skin of the Colonel’s back. “I take it you slid down the side of the tank?”

“Yeah—that’s all—really.  It stung, but it wasn’t terribly damaging.”  Sam lowered her shirt.  “I probably just have a scrape back there—or a raspberry.”

Glinda made a thorough examination.  The wound actually was more to the side, rather than on Sam’s back. “Yes—it’s a wide scrape. Right next to quite a large older scar.” And again, Glinda found herself preparing to apologize.  For bringing attention to the other woman’s past life—past wounds.  “Colonel, I’m—”

“No—really, Glinda.  It’s no secret. I actually got that one off-world—” She stopped, then wrinkled her nose.  “Well, okay— _that_ part is a secret. We were trying to figure out how to hide a village.  One of the enemy soldiers shot me with an energy weapon.”

“I’m surprised you lived.”

“Yeah—well.” Her soft smile flashed white in the moonlight.  “I had something to come back to.”

Glinda nodded.  “The General.”

“Yeah.” She bit her bottom lip, and Glinda quickly looked away.

She’d often wondered what it would be like to feel that way about another person. Bruce Gillinsby had not been her opportunity.  They’d had several pleasurable weeks together—and she’d been looking forward to more until his children had bought him a home in a retirement community in a place called Sun City.  That he’d gone to Arizona without argument had told Glinda all that had needed to be said.

She had, at one point in her life, been engaged to be married. Thomas had flown into her life when most other women her age were already married.  She’d been twenty-nine, and ready for something permanent. The sixties hadn’t been nearly as exciting for her as they had been for her friends—most had married early and subsequently spent the decade popping out posterity.

Glinda had spent that time either mourning her mother or working and helping take care of her despondent father.

Thomas Foley had appeared at a friend’s baby christening, full of himself but nice about it.  He’d teased her about her red hair and freckles, and commented on the mischief lurking within her green eyes. And then he’d summoned up some seriousness when he’d asked her to marry him a few months later.

Her father’s first stroke had delayed their trip to the Justice of the Peace. The second stroke had been incapacitating to the point of constant care and expensive treatments. Glinda had split her time between home and the Pentagon, scrimping wherever she could on her secretary’s salary in order to afford the nurse that sat with Dad during the day. In the end, Thomas had not been up to the challenge.  Glinda had let him go without malice—and even today felt a twinge of something blissfully poignant when she thought of him.

But again, when faced with the necessity to decide between her father and Thomas—it turned out that it was really no choice at all.  And Glinda knew that it signified something that what she felt was only a twinge rather than a torment.

And so the idea of yearning for someone seemed foreign.  To need someone like Sam needed Jack—and for this purpose, the nomenclature of _General_ and _Colonel_ just didn’t seem right—that need was a sensation that Glinda hadn’t ever quite understood.

But there had been times that she wished fervently that she did.

Because there had also been moments when she’d been soul-searingly lonely—when no amount of pleasant friendly activity had been able to assuage the empty that lurked within her. When she’d found herself talking with her geraniums, or begonias, or the ficus and desperately wishing to hear them answer.

And for the second time that evening, she felt that unwanted rush at her eyelids, and found herself blinking away tears. 

And wondering exactly when it was that she’d given up on love.

This time, the Colonel made the inquiry.  “Are you okay?”

But Glinda didn’t dare answer.  It was all quite suddenly too fresh—too raw—the blood and the fear and the regret.

“This sort of thing can be shocking the first time.”  Sam placed a hand on the outside of Glinda’s shoulder. “It can really drain you emotionally.”

And still Glinda just knelt there, her hands in her lap.  She looked down at them, at her fingers that had somehow started looking like her Nana’s.  At her bare nails, the age spots that no amount of lemon juice had faded, at the crinkled skin and obvious veins.  Useful hands—with their needle-forged calluses and short, serviceable nails.

And the barest hint of Sam’s blood tinging them pinkish in the moonlight.

_Sean Connery. Sean Connery.  Sean Connery._

“Glinda?”

Automatically, the response came.  “I’m fine.” But even to Glinda, her voice sounded wrong.

“It’s okay to admit you’re not, you know.”

Glinda shook her head.  “Okay to whom?”

“To me.” The simple statement resonated. “And to Jack.  And quite frankly, to yourself.  We have to give ourselves the latitude to have needs. To falter, every once in a while.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t quite believe that about you, Colonel.”

“I think you’re forgetting something.”  Sam gently chided.  “I seem to believe a conversation that you and I had in a converted bathroom stall a few weeks ago.  And how you helped me pull on my big girl pants and face my fears.”

Somewhat grudgingly, Glinda acknowledged the past event with a slight shrug.

“So I don’t want you to think that anything that you’re feeling right now is wrong.” The Colonel squeezed her shoulder, the grip firm.  “And after this is all over, we’ll work on making sense of it.  But for now, we need to accept that it sucks, and then get through it.”

Glinda hazarded a look up at her companion’s face.  Sam’s normally bright blue eyes were dark in the shadows of the forest.  And sincerity saturated her expression.  “So—what do we need to do?”

Sam’s smile seemed at once relieved and preparatory.  “Well.  We need to get up and moving again.”

“Do you think they’ll follow us?”

“Absolutely.” Sam looked back in the direction of the barn.  “I was expecting them to come earlier—but after the effects of the zat wore off, they must have been waylaid by the Goa’uld.”

“By collecting his remains?”  Glinda shifted on her knees, easing herself back into the prospect of standing up.

The Colonel’s hesitation seemed loud.  “Something like that.”

Glinda pondered on that for a moment.  “You think that they’re going to try to revive him.”

Sam tilted her head to one side.  “I think that the Goa’uld is probably still alive and kicking, and that there’s a perfectly good new body waiting for him in that tank in the barn.”

A shudder ran down the secretary’s spine.  “I really don’t know how you’ve grown used to this sort of thing.”

The Colonel gestured with both hands, palms up.  The motion seemed to say, _“Who knows?”_

Glinda tended to concur.  But the motion had also highlighted the bloodstains on Sam’s hands.  Sighing, she reached into the now-pocketless bag for the little bottle of hand sanitizer, flipping the cap open and dispensing some into the Colonel’s outstretched hands before squirting a dollop into her own.

“And can we split another granola bar?”  Sam stood, reaching out a hand to help Glinda up, too.

Glinda accepted the hand up, then stretched out for a moment before reaching back into her bag.  Withdrawing a banana, she handed it to the Colonel.  “I’ve also got an orange, a few apples, and some Vienna sausages.”

Sam immediately snapped open the top of the peel, her smile broad and contagious. “How on earth did you manage this?”

“In the kitchen.”  Glinda reached back into the depths of the purse.  Fiddling briefly with the bag tie, she pulled out two bolillo rolls. “You acquired knives and meat tenderizers.  I got sustenance.”

As they walked, Sam devoured the banana.  “You have no idea how hungry I was.  For this, alone, you should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

Glinda smiled and handed over a roll.  “So, what’s next?”  Reaching back into the bag, she searched for a can of sausages.

“We need to find a way out of here—contact Jack—and then we need to go back to the compound.”

Her fingers briefly stalling within her purse, Glinda recouped and pulled out a can. “Why?”

Sam grimaced.  “Well, I have the feeling that the actual Doctor Lee is in there, still.  Possibly in that same basement area where we were being held.”

“The unlocked room.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”  Sam had methodically broken up the bread and was downing it with military precision. “We can’t leave him there. Among other things—he’s a valuable source of intel for the program.  And a friend.”

The secretary popped the lid on the can of the little sausages. “Well, then, we’d better get all the nourishment we can in the meantime.”

“We’ll head that way.”  Sam pointed with a portion of her roll.  “Maybe we’ll run into another house, or a road.  If we can somehow ascertain our location, we’ll use your cell phone to call Jack.”

“It will be daylight soon.”

But the Colonel had stopped walking, and was cocking her head back in the direction they’d already walked.  Her narrowed eyes and drawn features suggested that she’d sensed something troubling.

Glinda tried to be patient, but still found herself asking the question. “What’s wrong?”

Sam frowned, her mouth suddenly tight.  “Glinda—do you think you’ll be able to run?”

“Run?” She shook her head. “Why?”

The Colonel glanced behind her, squinting into the distance. “Do you hear that?”

Glinda tried, but shook her head in frustration.  The sausages churned in her gut.  “Do I hear what?”

Sam threw the banana peel into the bushes, then grabbed Glinda’s arm and drew her forward.  Angling into a denser part of forest, she glanced at her companion as she broke into a jog. In her hand had suddenly reappeared the zat weapon.

“What do you hear, Colonel?”  Glinda couldn’t help it.  Ignoring the pricks and pokes to the soles of her feet, she hurried to stay alongside the other woman, dodging branches and limbs as she ran.

Sam ducked under a series of low branches, pausing only long enough to catch Glinda’s eye.  “Quads. Someone’s in the forest, and they’re riding quads.”


	12. Chase

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Chase_ **

 

 

“Quads?” Glinda had to ask. Although, with the pace the Colonel had set, even the single word had been a struggle.

“ATVs.” Sam threw the acronym over her shoulder. She hopped over a fallen log and reached behind her to offer Glinda a hand.  “All terrain vehicles.  And they’re a problem.”

As soon as she’d conquered the fallen tree, Glinda had turned her attention to the forest behind her.  Straining, Glinda could now hear the engine noises in the distance—it seemed like they were everywhere. Motors revving and stalling, the faint sounds of vegetation being crushed beneath wheels.  Shouting—men yelling directions or questions to each other, their voices brash to be heard over the sounds of the engines.

Briefly, just before Sam gripped her shoulder and shoved her unceremoniously towards a break in the shrubbery, she’d caught a glimpse of one of the beasts—red plastic fenders, chrome accents, black seat and engine cover, huge, bulbous tires. A child’s toy on steroids. But for whatever reason, she’d _needed_ to see it so that she could know from what she fled.

And here she’d thought that quads were what one ended up with when the specialist fertilized too many eggs.  The odd and varied things one learned whilst evading alien capture! Somehow, Glinda felt certain she would have lived quite happily for the rest of her life without this sort of education.

They’d sprinted off into the woods—trying to find a path where the earliest pink of the dawn hadn’t yet touched.  Where darkness had been their bane, now it beckoned as a sort of salvation. Darkness and thick shrubs and places in the woods where the lack of a path meant more difficulty for the vehicles than for those on foot.

Glinda followed the Colonel on a mad, haphazard dash further into the forest, ignoring the branches that whipped at her face and body, and the groundcover that seemed to cut a little deeper into her already tender bare soles with each step. She clung to her bag and simply concentrated on keeping up, intent on not becoming the proverbial weakest link in their tiny chain.  But even as fit as she’d thought herself to be, she still found herself drawing heavy, hard breaths within a few minutes.

Glinda felt a fresh tinge of annoyance.  Secretaries of a certain age weren’t meant to compete in cross country races. Especially not when their pursuers were burly weapon-wielding men on wheeled motorized conveyances. And no amount of meditation or yoga could possibly have prepared her for the intensity of strain engendered by being chased by such men.  Sun Saluting only allowed the one saluting to achieve relaxation when that person wasn’t actively fighting for survival. 

The pace set was brutal—more methodical than their mad dash across the corral. They eschewed the path in favor of the densest of forestation—taking no care whatsoever to stifle the sounds of their passing. Under their feet, the crackling branches and leaves created an odd, strident cadence that became Glinda’s war drum—driving her forward, impelling her on.

After a long spate of running, the Colonel slowed to a brisk walk, and Glinda felt that clear blue gaze on her—quietly assessing.  She wasn’t sure how to take that level of scrutiny.  As a service provider, she herself normally fixed people with that same look.  Figured out what they needed. That Sam had winnowed out the fact that Glinda could use a chance to catch her breath both pleased and embarrassed her.  And it allowed a glimpse into the power this woman would have both as a team mate and as a commander. And as a wife. And how wonderful she would be as a mother.

If she were allowed the chance to have the baby at all.  Glinda screwed up her resolve and walked faster.

The Colonel led Glinda through the wildness of the woods, dodging bushes and undergrowth.  Here the trees’ canopy had allowed in more light, and their bare feet were muffled by the soft carpeting of flowers and grasses growing in and around the trees. They rounded a huge beech tree, aiming for a stand of hickory, crouching low as a sudden break in the trees bordered a small meadow.  Sam again angled them deeper into the prevailingly wild mix of Virginia forest, somehow finding passage amongst the rocks, groundcover, and downed trees.

No time for thought—merely reaction. For these moments, at least, their entire purpose was not being found.

And somewhere, in the back of her mind, Glinda was transported back to her childhood, and games of hide and seek amongst the tall, waving stalks of corn on her father’s farm.  She knew this run—this breathless chase.  She’d played this way with cousins and countless farm-hands’ children—escape and flight and the excitement of the hunt.  Bright skies and sweat rolling down her cheek and choking sputters when she’d inhaled the random bug.  The smell of the earth itself—the dark, rich scent of joy and adrenaline.

It reminded her of life—of the _living_ of life. Of the endless surprise of not knowing what lay just around each corner.  She’d grown up free—with the sun on her neck and the wind in her curls. Where had she lost the child she’d been?

While trying to secure a comfortable future for herself, she’d lost sight of the thrill of the chase.  Just as she’d lost the ability to lose herself in another person—to trust someone else with her soul.

The thought gave her the briefest moment’s pause—she slowed as she approached a flat, wide boulder mostly buried in the dark, fecund earth—so intent was she on her memories that she skidded slightly on some moss and had to force herself back harshly into the present.

The engine noises and shouts had faded behind them, but Glinda, ripping herself out of her own past, didn’t notice until the Colonel slowed, then halted, within a thick stand of young pines.  Coming to an ungraceful stop next to Sam, the secretary leaned against a sapling and allowed the bag to slide down her shoulder to rest in the crook of her arm. She gulped in the cool morning air, swallowing it as if it were manna. 

It didn’t matter how far they had run—nor in what direction. What mattered was that, for the moment, no shouts or engines echoed in the distance.

“Are you okay?”  Sam’s voice sounded winded, tired, and Glinda glanced at her only to notice a sheen of sweat glistening on her temples, her bangs plastered to her forehead.

Unable to speak, Glinda nodded.  Pressing a hand to the stitch in her side, she sucked in air in deep, painful gulps, fighting for control.

“We could find a place to hole up and hope that they go away.” The Colonel’s voice cracked slightly, soft despite her harsh breathing.  “Or we could keep walking in a single direction and hope that we find a road.”

Glinda watched as Sam stood straight and braced herself against a tree, peering into the distance first one direction, and then the other. Somewhere along the way, a branch had caught at her braid, and it lay askew down her back, long strands flowing free over one shoulder, shorter tendrils curling under the Colonel’s chin. Wiping at the moisture above her brows, she then swiped at her nose with the back of her hand in a gesture that made Glinda’s already iffy breathing stall completely.

Young—she looked so young.  Like one of the fresh-faced recruits that paraded through the Pentagon from time to time. Not quite as sure of themselves as they are of their mission.  Glinda herself felt much the same way just at the moment—as the run hadn’t been the only thing to steal her breath away.  It had forced her to confront a childhood that had been taken from her too soon.

But she needed to bring herself under control—needed to gather herself together. Straightening her arm, she lowered the bag to the ground.  Glinda took one last deep, searing breath and used every bit of control she could summon to let it out slowly, with precision.  She would be of absolutely no use to the Colonel if she hyperventilated. Or worse, if she keeled over. Such histrionics were decidedly undisciplined, and rarely, if ever, provided anything of redeeming value.

Glinda Baldrich was not one to faint—had never done so, as a matter of fact. And wouldn’t succumb to that particular weakness without overwhelming provocation.  She’d often considered herself to be obdurate in that regard—that she refused to allow the inane or peculiar to rob her of acumen and choice. She had felt throughout her life that strength and survival lay in the freedom of personal ability. And although she’d never passed through giant wormholes in space, she _had_ survived the Pentagon through the Carter era, and not many in the military could boast of better.

She closed her eyes and found her center, felt her pulse begin to calm. Shifting against the tree, she turned to Sam and blinked her lids open again, focusing on her younger companion.

Cheeks flushed with effort, Sam’s hand rested on her midsection. With her intelligent, careful gaze, she scanned the forest again, and then turned back towards Glinda. “What do you think?”

“We need to find a way out of here.”  Glinda found that her voice was stronger than she’d imagined it would be.

“You need rest.” Sam, apparently, wasn’t above pointing out the obvious.

But then, on occasion, neither was Glinda. “So do you.” 

“Okay.” Sam shrugged compliantly, smiling around her exhaustion.  “We _both_ need rest.”

“And yet, we can’t sit in one place and wait for rescue.”  Glinda turned, examining the forest in a motion that had, to her shock, quite become habit. 

“We haven’t been doing so well in the ‘rescue ourselves’ department.”

“‘The best luck of all is the luck that you make for yourself.’”

Sam grinned.  “Of _course_ you’d quote MacArthur.”

“Is there anyone else to quote?”  Glinda reached down for the bag, grasping its handle and then righting herself again.

“General Landry quotes Dr. Phil from time to time.”

“General Bodine was a Churchill man.  And of course, General O’Neill prefers Homer.”  Glinda looked up and caught the Colonel’s gaze.  “Surprising.  I hadn’t thought him to be a man who would enjoy the classics.”

A twinge at the corner of Sam’s mouth competed with the fleeting pain that flashed through her eyes.  “He’s not _exactly_ quoting the classics when he quotes Homer, Glinda.”

Glinda crumpled a little inside, and knew that, once again, she’d said the wrong thing.  “Ma’am—”

But Sam waved off her impending apology.  She straightened and made a little circle, studying the woods, peering up at the sun’s slow progress from the horizon.  Glinda instinctively knew she needed silence, and stayed as still as possible, until the Colonel relaxed slightly and returned to Glinda’s side.

The sun had risen, now.  A glance at her watch told her that it was past five—not counting the time that she’d been unconscious due to the effects of the zat weapon, she’d been awake and active for nearly twenty four hours.  She didn’t know what had been keeping her going—adrenaline, perhaps.  Or fear. 

She certainly wouldn’t factor in that brief moment she’d felt just now—when the excitement had surged within her like the tide on the shore. She wasn’t the sort of woman to welcome this sort of danger.  Relishing it would not suit decorum.  But then, perhaps that was why she’d been able to let people go as she had throughout her life—she’d shoved such emotions firmly behind her, refusing to give them purchase or room to grow.

When you didn’t care about something deeply, then losing it couldn’t hurt.

A harsh breath from her companion broker her reverie, and she turned to see the Colonel regarding her with a close expression, her eyes kind.

But Glinda didn’t want to answer the questions she’d seen within those brilliant depths.  She grappled for something else—anything else to say.  With a modicum of desperation, she blurted, “Do you think they’ve given up?”

Sam considered her for a lingering beat, finally turning her attention back to the forest.  “No. But they have gone somewhere else. We turned east and angled around a bit—I tried to keep us going in a circle rather than straight off into the woods.”

“So we’re still close to the farm?”

“I think so—without a GPS unit or a map it would be difficult to say for certain.”

Glinda looked up and studied the vicinity in which they had paused. Without the cover of darkness, the woods didn’t loom nearly as foreboding.  Typical of the area, the trees were a strange conglomeration of types—beech, ash, pine, and oak.  The land, obviously private, had not been thinned by even the most conservative of logger. Here and there, trees had been downed by age or disease, and off to the west of where Glinda stood, a blackened stump of a trunk indicated one taken out by a lightning strike.

The land rolled beneath the trees.  The playgrounds of Glinda’s youth had been the vast flatness of midwestern farmlands.  Here, the ground swelled and flowed beneath the trees, adding to the difficulty of their flight.

Despite her sudden tiredness, despite her need for a moment’s respite, Glinda made her choice.  “We should keep walking.”

Nodding, the Colonel made another quick scan around them.  “If we head east, we might be able to skirt the compound and then somehow figure out where the road is.”  Reaching under her blouse, she withdrew her zat from where she’d stowed it in her waistband. It glowed a dull, metallic gray in the morning light.

“Then east it is.”  Glinda shouldered the bag on the opposite arm this time, raising her eyebrows slightly as she returned her attention to her companion.  “I’m assuming you know which way east is.”

“Well,” Sam smiled.  “I _am_ an astrophysicist.”

“I’ve known scientists who couldn’t find their own bathrooms.”

A decidedly indelicate snort erupted from the Colonel.  “Sadly, Glinda, I have too.”

They walked together this time—moving amongst the trees that provided the best cover. Glinda found herself wondering at the calm exuded by the woman next to her—Sam moved easily in the woods, almost relaxed, her body lithe and loose.  The zat in her hand seemed wrong, somehow, silhouetted against the bulge fleetingly displayed by the breeze at her shirt.  Golden hair tousled and glinting in the sun, the flush of the run still pinked her cheeks, Sam seemed like the average expectant mother on a pleasantly casual stroll—nothing more.

“How do you do it?”

“Do what, Glinda?”

“Remain so calm.”

Sam grinned and looked down at where her bare feet made a faint trail in the grass. “This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been on the run before.”

“But never like this—never on Earth, with the same challenges.”

“Have I ever been on the run and pregnant?”  Sam smiled.  “No. But I have been in a similar situation on Earth.  Kidnapped. Only then I was being used for experimentation, in a way.  They wanted to know things about me in order to help a man who was very sick.”

“And did you get rescued, or did you find the way out yourself?”

“I cut my restraints and got free briefly, but then was recaptured.” Sam cast a look to her side. “Eventually Jack came—with Daniel and Teal’c.”

“So you did need help.”

“Glinda, from time to time, everyone needs help.  No one can exist completely on their own.”

She felt the wind tousle her gray curls as she tilted her head in assent. “And here I was thinking that I was so smart.  I suppose that age isn’t the best indicator for wisdom.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”  Sam’s face relaxed into a smile.  “I think you’re pretty amazing.”

“Amazing and wise are hardly the same thing.  People can be amazingly idiotic.”

“Yes, but they can also be amazing in that they totally surpass all expectations.” The Colonel’s eyes widened pointedly. “And in that regard you, Pinky, are incredible.”

Glinda felt her cheeks respond to the General’s name for her. She’d never approved much of blushing—that particular response showed weaknesses of character at which she’d always scoffed.  But the heat in her face wouldn’t be quelled by mere willed stoicism.  She lifted her chin to the sky and felt the cool air on her forehead, her face, riffling what curls remained of her coiffure.

After a dozen or so steps, she sighed.  “I’m just an ordinary farm girl, Colonel.  Nothing incredible here.”

“Farm girl?”

“My father owned a small farm in the Midwest.”  Glinda adjusted the purse on her shoulder. She was glad that she’d double-folded the handles, the extra padding had proved a lifesaver. “He raised corn and wheat, and we had a few cows and pigs and chickens.  I remember helping him as a child, milking and slopping.  It was a different time, of course, the late forties.”

“After the War.”

“He didn’t go.  He was a farmer and therefore important for the war effort.”

“With small children—that kept him home, too.”

“I’m an only child.  And I was born after the hostilities had ended.”  Her smile carried a hint of ruefulness.  “My mother wasn’t able to conceive again.  Eventually we learned that she had a growth of some sort. There wasn’t anything anyone could do. She wasn’t strong. She just kind of laid down and died.”

“That must have been heart-breaking.”  The tone of the Colonel’s voice carried an air of understanding. “My mother died when I was young, too. She was killed in a car crash.”

“So we have that in common.”

“Among other things.”  Another sideways smile—warm and kind.  “But my father was military, and I had an older brother.”

“Was it easier—having a sibling?”

Sam tilted her head to one side and scrunched up her nose.  “Not really.  Mark was difficult to be around right after.  I compensated by trying to do everything to please my father.  Mark couldn’t get over his anger.”

“He blamed your father.”

“My dad had a propensity to get really involved with work.”  She paused, remembering?  Thinking.  “He was indirectly at fault for Mom’s death, but I could forgive him.  It just took Mark longer.”

Glinda nodded.  “My father never got over it.  He mourned my mother for the rest of his life.”

“That had to have been hard for you.”

Glinda lifted a shoulder in response.  They walked in silence for a while, Sam scoping the area around them. The sound of motors wafted through the trees from a great distance away, but her demeanor didn’t change. Glinda took that to mean that the searchers were too far away to pose any immediate danger.

“He was never the same.  He sold the land and headed east—his parents lived in Appalachia.”

“Where was this farm?”

“Outside Topeka.”

The Colonel abruptly stopped walking.  Alarmed, Glinda turned to face her.  “Do you hear something?”

But the odd half-smile on Sam’s face took the cake.  “ _Please_ tell me you mean Topeka, Kansas.”

“Unless there’s a Topeka in Oklahoma that I don’t know about.” Glinda watched as the Colonel held her hand over her mouth to quell her sudden grin.  “Ma’am?”

“Oh—wait until I tell Jack.  He’s going to love this.”

“Love what, Colonel?”

“Kansas. His secretary is from a farm in Kansas, and she’s named Glinda.”

“Well, the movie had just been at the local movie house and my mother fell in love with the name.”  Even to Glinda, her explanation sounded funny.  She found herself smiling back.  “Quite frankly, I’ve never cared for the name, but it’s _mine_ , so—”

“If you only knew the irony.”

Glinda shook her head.  “How could I know? And what irony?”

But a grating, mechanical noise in the distance behind them cut her off. The shift in Sam’s demeanor was immediate and absolute.  With a flick of a finger, she raised the head of the zat, nudging Glinda off onto a tangent from their previous trajectory.

And Glinda found herself running again—as the noise behind her grew louder, more ominous, and as a triumphant shout brought a raging chorus of replies—her feet made trails through the dew on the long grasses of the forest floor.

She chanced a look over her shoulder and felt a shiver work its way down her spine. Five of them, their ATVs bearing directly towards where Sam and Glinda ran.  Already close enough that the expressions on their faces clearly read victory.

She hastened her pace, pulling up next to the Colonel just as the younger woman shoved her unceremoniously behind a sprawling shrub.  Sam pointed frantically at a spot beyond, and Glinda directed her focus towards it—a huge, hollowed out tree trunk, surrounded by dense bushes. The men on their quads weren’t visible now—and Glinda found herself lowering her body into a crouch, running along towards the tree trunk, using the bushes as cover.

“Go! Get in there!” With a harsh whisper, Sam pushed her towards the trunk, and Glinda dropped to her knees—heedless of her skirt or the pine needles and pebbles that bit into her shins.  She crawled into the shrub, rounding the stump and pulling up in the thickest part of the mess—shoving over slightly when the Colonel made her way in and sat beside her.

“What—” Her whisper too loud, Glinda fell silent, biting her lips together, praying that the fast, nervous thrum of her heart wouldn’t give them away.

The motors droned by, and a hasty conversation between two of the men had them breaking up and heading in opposite directions.  The motors whined and grunted as vehicles passed the trunk once—twice—and then a third time on their way back to their original position.

Another shouted conversation ensued between the men, and then, one by one, the engines shut off, and their words were intelligible.

“Screw it.  I’m heading back.” The voice reeked of enmity—low and gruff, more a growl than anything else.

“He won’t like it—he said not to come back until we’ve found them.” This one seemed more of a whine.

“What if we can’t find them?  They disappeared for hours before—what makes you think that they haven’t already found a way around us?”

“Dude—they’re two women on foot.  One of them old, and the other one knocked up.  Don’t you think we should be able to find them?”

The growler answered him.  “Yeah, but Carl, the knocked up one has taken out more Goa’uld than you have.”

“Still—she’s pregnant—how far could she run?  Especially with the old broad dragging her down.”

Whiny stopped him.  “Hey—that old lady did a real number on Phil.”

“Phil was an idiot.  He should have called for back-up.”

“Again, Carl—think.  Old lady. Would _you_ have called for back-up?”

Carl quieted for a minute, and a hurried, murmured conversation that Glinda couldn’t hear passed between two or three of the others. 

Glinda sat with her back against the stump, willing her entire body still. Beside her, Sam had hunkered down as much as she could, sitting awkwardly, her body stretched at an odd angle.

“So it’s settled.”  Growly again. “You three stay here and keep looking. Carl and I will go back and see what he wants us to do.”

“Why don’t you just radio?”

“Out of range.”

“Your cell phone works.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dude. Cell phone.  Ringing.  Isn’t it that girly ring tone you use?”

They quieted, and Glinda could hear a tune playing—Claire de Lune—a familiar song that had always been one of her favorites.  For the barest of instants, she felt a kind of sick kinship with the monster beyond the hedge.  A beast who just happened to share her love of Debussy.  She swiveled her head to catch Sam’s eye—to share, perhaps, a commiserating glance.

But the Colonel wasn’t returning her gaze—her entire focus was on Glinda’s skirt pocket, her face a portrait of horrified, sudden acknowledgement.

And only then did Glinda realize that the reason why she recognized the ring tone was that it was _her_ ring tone.

And it was coming from her pocket.


	13. Closer

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Closer_ **

****

She’d never be able to listen to that song again with this sickness returning.

This horrid, dropping sensation in the pit of her stomach that signaled that she’d had done something horribly, terribly wrong.

And worse than losing the joy she’d once found in Claire de Lune was the knowledge that _she_ had been the means of their being discovered.  That their undoing had been encapsulated in the simple fact that she hadn’t pressed that little button on the top right corner of her key pad.  She’d merely flipped the phone shut rather than turning the power off completely.

As soon as she’d realized her mistake, she’d begun to fumble for the phone, but Sam had reached out and grabbed her arm.  With a tiny, tight jerk of her head, the Colonel ordered her to stay still. Silent, petrified with fright, Glinda did nothing—simply sat there, her back butted against the trunk of the fallen tree, allowing the traitorous device to ring itself out.

Beyond the foliage, the men rallied.  She could hear squeaking as they dismounted their beastly conveyances and neared the stump, their boots tromping on leaves, and undergrowth.

“I’m telling you, that wasn’t my phone.”  Growly again.  His voice closer now—louder and more distinct.

“Well, it wasn’t mine—or any of the rest of ours.”  Whiny sounded further away, still, as if he hadn’t yet dismounted his quad.

“Are you sure?”  Growly obviously wanted absolution.  “Carl used to have something stupid like that on his phone.”

“Dude—shut up already.  We know it wasn’t you. Think, man.  Who else would it be?”

One of the men made a sound that Glinda recognized as the dawning of understanding.

“That’s right, dude—it’s them.  They have to be around here, somewhere.”

“It sounded like it was coming from in here.”  Around a dozen feet away, branches shook, and Glinda caught a glimpse of their agitator, a bulky bald man, his face set in a question. Placing a voice to the location, she cemented him in her memory at Growly.

Carl’s voice sounded nearest—as if he were right on top of the stump. “They’re hiding somewhere in here. They must have just dived in.”

Glinda surveyed her environs.  The vegetation behind the stump, wherein she and Sam huddled, gathered closely around them—thick and dense.  Barely enough room existed in their hollow to move, let alone attempt any sort of escape. A glance beside her showed the Colonel’s face—tense, intense—her blue eyes closed tight.

Leaves crunched beyond the stump—the same leaves as those currently clinging stubbornly to Glinda’s bare knee, the same leaves she felt sure had taken root in her hair.  She didn’t dare reach up to brush them out, however, and take the chance of alerting the goons beyond the stump to her precise location.  So she stayed put, trying not to move.

Again, from a little further than before, Growly’s voice reached her. “So they’re in there somewhere.”

Glinda hadn’t seen how deep the thicket extended—she’d only seen the stump, and the tiny opening in the brush where she’d thrown herself. With a further sinking in her gullet, she wondered how large that opening was now—now that she’d passed through it, and then the Colonel.  Surely they would see it.

“That’s a lot of bushes.”  Carl made this astute observation, the wonder in his voice betraying the lackluster power of his cognitive abilities.

Footsteps crunched over the leaves.  Glinda tried to slow her breathing, clamping her mouth tight and flaring her nostrils in an effort to gain enough oxygen.  Something—or someone?—kicked the bottom of the bushes ten or so feet away, and light rippled through the hedge as one of the men ran his hand along the top edge directly above where she and Sam had crawled in. More noises to her far right indicated that one of the men circled the expanse of shrubbery, positioning himself on the opposite side.

“Carl!” This voice from the far left—the men surrounded them on all sides, now.  “Go for it!”

“Okay, ladies!”  Carl’s voice held a modicum of patience, slathered over several deep veins of annoyance. “We know you’re in there. Come on out, now.”

Glinda passed another look at the Colonel, but she still sat in her same position, only she’d raised one hand, now, and pressed it to her lips. It wasn’t possible to know if the green tinge on her cheeks resulted from light reflecting on the leaves around them, or from fear.

“Come on, now.”  Growly’s voice had turned condescendingly sing-song, as if that might induce them to emerge.

“We know you’re in there—you’re not going to get out without us seeing you.”

“Yeah—we’ve _totally_ got you surrounded.”

“What are you going to do now, Carl, tell them to come out with their hands up?” Whiny again, from even further, his voice a high pitched shout.

Another exasperated exhalation met this taunt.  “Shut up, Dave.”

Unbelievably, Glinda found herself pondering upon the hiring pool for thugs and villains.  In an instant of inanity, she wondered how one went about advertising for such a position. Was there some sort of website for those desiring to take up occupations as mercenaries?  Surely it couldn’t be a very lucrative line of work—especially if they were like these five, with their bickering and complaining and whining.

None of them would have lasted a day under the command of General O’Neill, and Glinda felt certain that Colonel Carter, were she not currently hunched up in some sort of distress in the bushes, would have handily taken them all to task just for being idiots.

But still, they were idiots who wanted to take them captive. Idiots with weapons, she was certain, who were beholden for whatever reason to a couple of cloned Goa’ulds. If Glinda had told anyone at her Guild meeting the previous week that she would find herself in this predicament, they would have made a few phone calls to Shady Pines for the padded wagon and burly attendants to come and take her away.

Glinda frowned, her gaze caught by the pallor on the Colonel’s face, the slight tremble of Sam’s hand where it cupped her mouth.

Excruciatingly careful not to disturb any of the branches around her, she reached a hand out to touch the Colonel’s arm.  Her voice barely a whisper, she breathed a single word.  “Ma’am?”

Sam shook her head again, her eyes cracking open, brows steepling together above the bridge of her nose.  One hand still at her mouth, the other hand curved around her mid-section, the reason for her inaction suddenly became starkly clear.  The enormity of the situation then hit Glinda like a flash from a zat—and no quantity of Paul Newmans would help make it better.

Because Glinda had actually seen Samantha Carter in this state before—sitting in a converted bathroom stall in the Pentagon, to be exact, holding a glossy ultrasound print-out.

Morning sickness.  Right here, behind this stump, hidden under these bushes, the early day sun barely making it through the leaves and twigs to display the nausea wreathing the Colonel’s visage. She swallowed convulsively, and her body shuddered once, then twice.  Sam was trying not to—Glinda searched for an acceptable term for this particular unfortunate physical process—regurgitate. 

“What should I do?”  A bit louder, this time, she leaned closer, a twig raking the sleeve of her blouse.

But the Colonel only shook her head.  Nothing.  Nothing _could_ be done.

“Ladies. My patience is wearing thin.” Whiny spoke from Sam’s direction, his words punctuated by a sharp shaking of the plants in that direction. Glinda could see him moving—his body little more than a shadow on the canopy of the shrubbery. “Pretty soon, I’m going to lose it. And you won’t enjoy that, I assure you.”

A snort from the far end of the thicket answered him, and the fifth man, previously unheard, laughed.  “What are you, now, Dave, the Incredible Hulk?”

Dave prodded at the bushes again.  “Shut up, Barry.”

This time, Barry’s voice came through mockingly—nasal, and with a great degree of mock-sincerity.  “‘I’m going to get angry—and you won’t like me when I’m angry’.”

“Barry, don’t be an ass.”  Exasperation rode in Dave’s tone.

“Seriously. You’d think that you were going to turn green here and start ripping of your clothes.”

“Shut up, you guys!”  Growly again. “Let’s just find Thelma and Louise so we can get back to the house and out of all this stinking nature.”

Glinda listened as they recouped, and then froze anew as all around them branches were being knocked to and fro.  The sunlight glinted off the tool of the disturbance.  Even though she hadn’t fired a weapon in years, she still recognized the business end of a rifle when she saw one. 

Hunkering down further, she looked up to see the Colonel somewhat recovered, her lips pursed tightly, raising the zat in readiness.  In the hubbub created by the men above the canopy, Glinda leaned close to Sam.  “What do we do?”

“I don’t know, Glinda.”  Sam shook her head, clenching her jaw between words.  “All I have is the zat.  They all have semi-automatic weapons.  We can’t compete.”

“They might not find us.”

“Glinda.” Sam’s whisper had a hint of desperation in it.  “They need me. The Goa’uld wants me to help him with the sarcophagus.”

 

“Yes—and?” Glinda threw herself back against the trunk as a branch came perilously close to hitting her in the head. “We can’t stay here. We’ll be found. They’re so close.”

“I’m afraid that if we surrender—if I help them, they’ll decide that they don’t need you anymore.”  Sam’s eyes narrowed, her face screwed in an expression of extreme disgust.

The implication of that statement took a second to sink in. Truly, Glinda herself had been a mistake.  She obviously had not been the target.  Her kidnapping had been an aberration to the plan that the Goa’uld had so determinedly enacted.

She, Glinda Baldrich, was completely superfluous in the matter.

Expendable. She would be collateral damage—nothing more.

Honestly, she’d never felt that way before.  Always, throughout her life, she’d been necessary to the general good.  Volunteering, working, caretaking—these had been her life, her entire focus on the success of her family, her job, and her activities.  But in this particular circumstance, the Colonel’s words rang with a horrific truth.  Glinda had no ability or power which could possibly benefit their captors.  Her expiration would not be a loss in any form.

And the face of her mother rose, unbidden, in her mind.  Her mother, who, bless her soul, had merely accepted her fate for what it had been and let her illness dictate the rest of her life. Glinda’s father’s countenance joined hers—wasting away in his own despair, until the strokes had finally provided an excuse for his lethargy of will.  Somehow, Glinda had always considered herself above that level of inaction—she’d done something with her life—filled it as much as possible with the opportunity to better herself and the world around her.

She would not quit now.  And in a way, it felt liberating, this sense of finality.  As if she had one last chance to do the right thing.

She schooled her own expression into one of defiance.  Raising her eyes to the Colonel’s, she reached out and grasped the zat.  “I’ll cover you.”

But the men above the canopy had given up on searching for them, and had apparently decided to take the more direct approach.  On one side of the shrubbery, the brisk raking stopped. “Screw this, you guys. I’m done with being nice.”

At his words, the bushes stopped trembling, and slowly stilled. Glinda could hear a hasty, hushed conversation from her right side, but couldn’t make out the words.

Glinda stalled, her attention drawn by the sudden quiet. She peeked at the Colonel, whose head was cocked towards the new sound, her lips white, her face pale.

“Come on, Carl.”  Barry’s voice called from the other side of the hedge.  “Decide already!”

Briefly, Carl paused.  Then, his voice edged with frustration, he spoke.  “Listen—if you two don’t come out right now,” with a harsh, metallic _schick,_ he cocked his weapon.  “I’m going to start shooting.”

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

“So, did she answer?”

“No—it went to voice mail.”

“Maybe she’s turned the phone off to avoid detection?”  Daniel’s voice carried the tone of hope that Jack’s had been lacking.

“Or perhaps it has been taken away from them by their captors.” At this, Ba’al’s eyes flashed, his expression smug.  “To prevent them from calling for help.”

“Shut up, Ba’al.”

“It’s what I would have ordered done.”  The Goa’uld’s smug shrug rankled.  And his well-groomed beard undulated as he tried—unsuccessfully—to keep from smiling.

Jack felt the corner of his eye twitch.  “Shut up, Ba’al.”

“I am just trying to aid you in your search, General O’Neill.” Whole-cloth innocence dripped from the words.

It had, maddeningly, been the Goa’uld who had reminded them that they could try Glinda’s cell phone.  So intent had Daniel and Jack been on communicating with Sam that they’d forgotten that she wasn’t alone in this predicament.  After two hours of driving up and down roads that appeared to have been planned and engineered by random cows, Ba’al had tilted his head to one side, a single brow raised, and casually asked why they hadn’t tried the secretary’s number.

The General’s trigger finger had literally jerked inwards towards his palm.

If a Goa’uld couldn’t be dead, Jack thought, he ought to at least shut the hell up.

But Jack had still flipped his phone open and found the speed dial button for his secretary’s cell.  Glinda Baldrich apparently didn’t believe in personalized greetings—a distinctly male voice had mechanically relayed the message that the number he’d reached wasn’t available, and he should feel free to leave a message at the tone. Instead, he’d snapped the phone closed and dropped it into the cup holder in the center console.

His rough sigh had verbalized more than words would have.  It had been both satisfying and infuriating to hear that message.

The infuriating part was obvious—another dead end on a road that seemed to be constructed of them.  The satisfying part Jack would never had admitted for every ZPM in the universe—but it felt _that_ good to have the snake be wrong.

On the seat behind him, Daniel shifted.  “Jack—we still don’t know anything.”

“I know, Daniel.”

“Although you would probably know more if Miss Baldrich had only answered her phone.” The Goa’uld’s manner suggested ease, and relaxation—an attitude directly at odds with the General’s tense readiness. He made a show of adjusting his seat belt, and sighed, the exhalation loud in the cab of the SUV. “I can assure you that if she were my underling, she would have escaped by now and found her way back into my service.”

“Ba’al, this really isn’t helping.”  Daniel, again, from the back seat, his voice a mixture of resignation and annoyance.

“Doctor Jackson.”  Ba’al turned his head and caught the other man’s eye.  Cocking his head with a mountainous degree of arrogance, he lifted a brow. “Surely you know that it is my honest intention to be of service in this endeavor.”

“And the fact that at the end of this jaunt there’s a sarcophagus doesn’t matter to you in the least, does it?”

“I have not denied that I could make good use of such a device.” Ba’al turned his head back towards the front.  “However, I am here on a mission of good will.”

“Whose good will?”  As usual, Daniel picked up on the pertinent point.  “Ours or your own?”

“You have no use for the sarcophagus.”  The Goa’uld’s voice had lowered a pitch—becoming more resonant as his ire rose. “I do.  I have no use for the other clones, or for Miss Baldrich. You would like to have those safely back within your control.  I believe that exchanging the spoils of the battle is customary when forming alliances.”

“And what about Sam?  You didn’t include her on your little list, there.”  Daniel leaned forward again, resting a forearm on the back of the passenger seat.

“Ah.” The dark head inclined again—ever so briefly.  “Your Colonel Carter is something of a conundrum.”

“A what?”  Jack’s head flashed to the side, his eyes narrowed at the Goa’uld.

“A conundrum.  A problem to be sorted out.”

“I know what a conundrum means, Ba’al.”  Jack glanced briefly at the narrow lane in front of him before glaring sideways again. “How in the name of holy hell does _my_ wife become _your_ conundrum?”

Ba’al took his own sweet time answering.  He looked to his left briefly before leaning forward and pressing the button on the door that activated the window.  Watching as it opened, he smiled into the breeze that blew gently in through the opening before turning his head back towards the man in the back seat. “For all that the First one derided this planet, I must admit that I have grown rather fond of it. It has its pleasant moments—and quite beautiful scenery.”

“Yeah—it’s swell.”  Jack fingers drummed a broken, impatient rhythm on the steering wheel.  “Now get to the point.”

But Ba’al ignored him.  “And the people. My memories—my knowledge of the Tau’ri are that they are an annoyance.  Little more than fodder for me and my kind.”  He turned his attention from the window and faced the General. “But also buried in the memory which I inherited is a grudging respect for your wife, Jack O’Neill.”

“Just her?”

“Among others, I suppose.”  Ba’al grimaced, his attention flickering over his shoulder at where Daniel sat behind him. “But that which I have gained for Colonel Carter is greatest.  She is both intelligent and pragmatic.”

Jack found it difficult to answer around the tightness that suddenly constricted his throat.  He swallowed—hard. “That she is.”

“An odd mixture for a female of your race.  Which brings to bear the question again.”  The Goa’uld lifted a finger at Jack.  “Why you?”

Daniel groaned from the back seat.  “Ba’al—if we could keep this on subject, please.”

The Goa’uld tossed a look over his shoulder at Daniel.  “As you desire, Doctor Jackson.  I was only attempting to explain that in order to complete my objectives with the sarcophagus, I would need Colonel Carter’s assistance in completing the device.”

“You don’t know how to connect to Telchak box?”

“The Telchak device is nothing—of itself it poses no problem.” Ba’al’s derisive snort punctuated his statement. “Forging a connection between the device and your limited Tau’ri technology is another issue, completely.”

“Ba’al, I swear.”  Jack clamped his mouth shut, his jaw flexing.

Daniel poked the Goa’uld in his fine-tailored shoulder.  “I’d go easy on the ‘primitive’ talk, if I were you.”

Ba’al’s only answer was a cocky upturn at the corner of his mouth.

“And besides, it’s not going to matter anyway, if we can’t find the farm.” Daniel reached to his side and collected the laptop from the seat next to him.  “It says we’re close.  But I haven’t seen any roads.”

“Perhaps the road has been obscured.”  The cloned Goa’uld indicated the surrounding brush with a nod of his head. “I can’t imagine my erstwhile brother advertising his location.  Neither of us can know how many more of us are out there.”

“I still don’t understand why you all just can’t share the damned thing.” The General threw a disgusted look to his right before returning his attention to the path ahead.

Daniel, unbelievably, chuckled.  “Have you _met_ the Goa’uld, Jack?”

The General made a rough sound in the back of his throat.  Steering the SUV around a bend in the road, he slowed as the lane became little more than a collection of ruts.  To his tactical eye, he could tell that no vehicle had passed there recently.  He shifted the Expedition into ‘reverse’ and began to back up at an angle, preparing to turn around. Pulling back out into the road, he gunned the engine over a rough spot, then steered onto a wide clearing on the shoulder.  With a sharp, brash exhalation, he twisted the keys in the ignition, and the motor cut off.

For a full minute, the only sound in the car came from the whirring of the fan in Daniel’s computer.  Here or there, a bird’s song or the shushing of the trees wended their way through the open passenger side window. 

In another set of circumstances, another time, this quiet would have been relaxing. It should have been soothing, this cool, fresh morning amidst the lush foliage of the Virginia wild.

But to the General, it was a tactical nightmare.  Too much area to search, too little man power. Far, far too much at stake.

“We’re not getting anywhere like this.”  He squinted into the early morning light, then suddenly reached for and grasped his sunglasses from the cubby in the dash.  Slipping them on, his fingers found the door handle and, with a harsh sigh, he shoved it open.

“Jack—where are you going?”  Daniel shut his laptop, setting it on the console between the two front seats. Automatically, his hand dug into the duffel bag and withdrew his holstered Glock.  Gripping the confiscated Beretta in one hand, and the Glock in the other, he looked up for his friend.  “Jack?”

But the General had slid out of the lifted SUV, slamming the door shut behind him. Adjusting his jacket as he went, he made his way to the back of the Expedition and popped open the back window, then each of the double doors that acted as a tail gate.  Efficiently, as if he hadn’t been stuck in an office for the past few years, he flipped open the toggles on a hard plastic gun case, withdrawing a vintage Winchester 42 from the molded foam within.

Daniel appeared at his side.  “What’s that?”

“It’s a gun, Daniel.”

“I can see that, Jack.”  Heavy in Daniel’s right hand, the Beretta seemed tiny compared to the long gun. His eyes flickered between the two weapons.  “It’s a shotgun if I’m not mistaken.  Not your normal MO.”

Jack pulled a handful of shells out of an army surplus ammo can, pocketed them, and then did it again.  “It’s not like they let me keep the P-90, Daniel.”

“Well, I know _that_.” In a motion so practiced that it seemed innate, Daniel held out the Beretta to Jack, who stowed it in the holster at the back of his belt.  Without even looking at his own holster, he fit it around his thigh and buckled it up. “I’ve just never seen that shotgun before. Hell, I’ve never seen you with a civilian weapon before.”

Jack paused.  Running a hand along the polished wood stock, he felt his body tighten.  He regarded the finely honed steel of the barrel, the matching wood of the choke. “It was Jacob’s. He’d inherited it from his father.”

Daniel nodded.  After a moment he spoke. “And Sam gave it to you.”

“She _trusted_ me with it.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t give it to Mark.”

Just barely, Jack kept from snorting.  “He wouldn’t have known what to do with it.”

“And you do?”  Daniel’s question hovered between them—heavy, and plain.

Jack looked up at his friend.  Throughout the years he’d had many people he considered friends—mostly guys he’d fought beside in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the myriad other hell-holes into which he’d been sent.  But none knew him so wholly as _this_ man—this opinionated, obstinate scientist.  The man to whom Jack owed too much to ever be repaid.  Their eyes held for two breaths—three—far longer than was normal for them.

Longer than was comfortable.

“What’s the plan, Jack?”

“We’re going to get them back.”

“That’s _really_ not much of a plan.”

“Yeah, well.”  Eyes narrowed, lips thin, Jack looked away, off into the distance, through the deep, verdant green of seemingly endless vegetation.  “It’s the only one I have, Daniel.”

“And how am I to defend myself?”  Ba’al’s voice intruded upon the moment.  Turning, Jack looked at the Goa’uld.  Jack himself had changed out of his military dress before leaving home. He’d thrown on the first clothing he’d pulled out of his drawers—khakis and a dark green t shirt under his haggard leather jacket.  Daniel had come dressed for the ride, as well, in jeans and a black sweatshirt.  The Goa’uld, however, stood resplendently ridiculous in his elegantly tailored clothing and polished Italian shoes. 

Jack took in the vision with a single, impatient glance.  “I’m not giving you a weapon.”

“And why not?”  The clone frowned. “Am I not an essential member of this team?”

“Not really.”  Jack turned back to the tailgate of his truck.  Shoving the doors shut, he them slammed down the window.  “But you’re welcome to stay as out of the way as possible. Maybe then I won’t give in to the overwhelming urge to shoot you.”

“O’Neill—you are indeed a—”

But Daniel interrupted him before he could finish.  With a quick hand, the archaelologist waved the Goa’uld quiet. “Shh—did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Just listen.”

They fell silent, all three men standing perfectly still, heads cocked in the direction that Daniel had indicated.

And for a moment, all the sound that came to them was the breeze rifling the leaves in the trees, a bird calling from far away, a rodent of some sort scampering through the underbrush.

But just as Jack turned his head back towards Daniel, a single burst came through the forest—from the west, sharp, and as distinct as if it had been just on the other side of the Expedition.

“Did you hear that?”  Glasses glinting in the sun, Daniel caught Jack’s eye.

“I did.” The General locked the vehicle and then shoved his keys into his pocket.  “Let’s move.”

But the Goa’uld lagged behind, his face screwed into an expression of consternation.  “What is it? What did you hear?”

Jack completely ignored him, but Daniel turned his head and raised a brow. “Come on, Ba’al. There’s no time to waste.”

“What was it?”  The Goa’uld asked again.

Daniel sighed, jogging across the road and following Jack into the forest.

“Doctor Jackson?”

Within the safety of the woods, Daniel slowed and captured Ba’al’s attention again. “I was sure you’d recognize it by now, Ba’al.  That was gunfire.”


	14. Again

**_Taken_ **

****

****

**_Again_ **

 

 

“I’ll go out there—I’ll try to convince them that you’re not with me. That you got away.”

“Come now, Colonel.  Surely you don’t think that they’ll believe that?”

Their whispered conversation took the intensity and pace of rapid-fire debate—one speaking nearly on top of the other.  Glinda still held the zat weapon in her left hand, her body twisted towards where the Colonel leaned against the tree stump.

“If I give myself up—surrender—maybe they’ll let you go and you can go and find Jack.”

“We don’t know where he is.”  Glinda shook her head, and a leaf dislodged itself from her hair and drifted down to settle on her shoulder.  “And we’re not certain that was him, just now.”

“One of us has to get away from them.”  Sam eyes narrowed.  “And since they need me, I think it’s got to be you.”

“I don’t mean to offend, Ma’am, but I think we should try to remain together.”

“Glinda.” Sam’s voice lowered even further, her eyebrows furrowed.  “I don’t think you understand.”

“I’m sure I do, Colonel Carter.”  Glinda caught and held that intent, blue gaze.  “I know that those men out there consider me to be expendable. I’m willing to take that risk.”

Sam’s face fell, her pale features drawn almost beyond recognition. Around them, outside the copse of bushes, the guards’ voices rose and lowered as they argued amongst themselves—jockeying for position.  However muted their words had become, the ominous preparations of their weapons rang clearly out in the otherwise quiet of the forest.

“Ma’am—I’m not of any use to you if I’m not _with_ you.  I don’t have the skills that you have for finding your way out of this forest.”

“And I’m not prepared to watch you die, Glinda.”

And there it was.  Stark and blunt between them.  No longer merely an ephemeral threat, but now a result completely within the realm of probability. Glinda blinked, ashamed that her cowardice required her to need that little bit of space between Sam’s statement and her own answer.  Swallowing hadn’t ever seemed like a difficult task before, and yet now, working past the fear in her throat bordered on the impossible.

“Colonel Carter.”  Carl again. Glinda jerked slightly at the sound of his voice—so close to where they hid behind the trunk. “We both know that you’re in there. My boss wants you back, for whatever reason, and my job is to bring you to him.”  He paused, his words punctuated by a sudden movement in the branches several feet away.  He had teased at them with the barrel of his rifle again.  “He wants you alive, but me?—Honestly—I’m not too picky about that part.”

“He needs her, Carl.”  This voice came from further away and to the Colonel’s left—on the opposite side of the trunk from Carl.  “It’d suck to be you if you brought her back dead.”

“Then maybe _he_ should have come after her.”

“That’s what he pays _us_ for.” Glinda didn’t have a name for this voice—it seemed calmer than the others, more mature, somehow.  “I think you’re forgetting that we’re here to serve him, and not the other way around.”

Carl paused, and through the greenery above her, Glinda could see the shape that was his body jerk as he suddenly drew the rifle to his shoulder, sighted, and fired into the bushes.  The bullet tore an ugly, if benign, path through the vegetation, burying itself with a heavy thud into the earth a dozen or so feet away from Glinda’s feet even as the report faded into the morning breeze. 

Involuntarily, Glinda jerked, edging away from the spot where the bullet made a tiny mound in the hardened dirt.  And yet, she couldn’t take her eyes off it—imagining the projectile making its way through human flesh rather than the dross of random forestation. Despite her best efforts, she could not quell the shudder that wriggled its way through her, and she barely felt where Sam’s hand gripped her arm.

“Carl! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Providing service to Ba’al.”  A sound of crackling leaves and undergrowth made its way to Glinda’s ears as he shifted in his stance.  Another ominous metallic _schick_ told her he’d cocked the weapon again.  And when he spoke this time, his voice contained a smile.  “Come on, ladies.  Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Another shot ripped through the bushes—clearing a small path of twigs and leaves. Despite herself, Glinda jumped.  Scooching towards the Colonel, she curled herself as close to the stump as possible as yet another shot ripped through the greenery.

“We could just light the whole thing on fire.”  Dave made this suggestion.  “Flush them out that way.”

“Nah—it’s a ton more fun shooting it.”

The sounds of Carl changing positions anew crunched into their awareness. Cocking his weapon again, he fired another shot into the mass of shrubbery—further, this time—well away from where Sam and Glinda backed up to the stump. 

“Come out, ladies!  I have plenty of ammo!”

“Carl! Cut it out!  There are people around, you know.”  Barry’s voice called from the other side of the shrubbery.

“So? It’s private property.”

“Still—you don’t want them calling the cops by mistake.”

Another shot splintered branches and kicked up dirt eight feet in front of them, and as the report faded, she heard Carl laugh.  “Oh yeah.  The crack team of police professionals here in Mayberry.  Like I’m really scared of Andy and Barney. I’m shaking in my shoes that they’ll arrest me and Floyd might make me his woman.”

“Carl!” The fifth man’s voice boomed out then—a tone that allowed no misinterpretation.

Through the leaves, Glinda could see the shadow of Carl as he lowered his weapon. Again, the newest voice raised itself. “We need her alive.”

“Okay, then.”  The tenor of Carl’s voice changed—became a tidge obsequious.  “How do we get them out of there?”

The voices mumbled again between themselves above them, and Glinda found herself torn between trying to make them out, and sympathetically watching as Sam fought yet another wave of sickness.  Taking care not to speak above a whisper, she leaned closer to the Colonel. “Will you be okay?”

Sam took a deep, silent breath and nodded.  Exhaling just as quietly, she rolled her eyes towards the green canopy above them.  “As strange as it sounds, Glinda, I’d feel better if I could just throw up.”

“Is that normal?”  Surely it wasn’t. Glinda knew she’d adopted an expression generous with skepticism.  “I’ve never been in your condition, so I don’t know.”

“Who knows?”  With a tiny, half-hearted shrug, her eyes widening as some color returned to her cheeks, the Colonel answered. “It seems to be normal for me.”

“I am rapidly losing my patience.”  The fifth man, still unnamed, spoke above them.  His voice, a deep baritone, seemed infused with something that the other men lacked—confidence, perhaps, or arrogance.  “It would be better for all of us if you would just come out. I don’t want to give the order for all of these gentlemen to fire en masse into this lovely shrubbery. More might get hurt than leaves and branches.”

The Colonel’s hand tightened on Glinda’s arm.  She met Sam’s gaze head on—knowing that the time had come for decisions.

“Glinda—I’m calling it.  I’ll go. You stay here.” Her face had changed. Still nauseated, still wan, still worried, now Sam’s expression also deepened into something more absolute. Glinda knew she viewed more than just _Sam_ now—she was looking upon the face of _Colonel Carter_ , who had directed operations in Atlantis, the woman who had commanded an interstellar space craft, the woman who had spent the better part of her adult life tromping through the galaxy battling unknown evil.  Grim determination exuded from her features, and Glinda knew that her own arguments would make no difference.

“Ma’am—” she began, but her voice shook, and she bit her lips together. Compulsively, she tightened her hand on the zat, and gathered her bag closer to her.  “Please.”

The blonde braid bobbled a bit as the Colonel shook her head. “I’m making a decision. There’s no point in both of us getting caught, and I can keep myself alive—I can’t be sure about you.” Sam reached out and pressed a hand to Glinda’s arm.  “Find Jack. Bring him to me.”

“Ladies!” The fifth man spoke again, more loudly. “The longer you make me wait, the worse it will be.  Believe me when I tell you that my companions enjoy wanton destruction.  They’d make short work of your hedge.”

Sam’s clear, blue gaze bore into Glinda’s green one.  Without another word, Sam turned awkwardly in the small space, and crawled away, leaving Glinda huddled alone next to the trunk.

“I’m coming out.”  Sam’s voice rose from the vegetation as she neared the outer edge of the greenery. After a pause, she spoke again. “I’d appreciate it if your goons didn’t shoot me.”

How did she do it?  Glinda listened as the Colonel announced herself at the entrance.  Her voice sounded at once conversational and commandeering—as if she expected the men gathered around to do her will. With a last flip of branches, she disappeared completely from Glinda’s view.  “I’m here.  You got me.”

“Where is your companion?”

“She couldn’t keep up.  She’s holed up somewhere.  Out there.” Flippant, casual, the Colonel sounded as if it were absolutely true.  “I was supposed to find help and come back for her.”

“You’re lying.”

“I could be.”

A long pause followed the Colonel’s admission.  Glinda listened intently, scanning what she could see of the area around her as the men seemed to be gravitating towards the stump. Tempted to hold her breath, she instead concentrated on inhaling and exhaling normally—as quietly as possible.

“She has nothing to do with this.  Let her alone.”  Sam’s voice had turned cold.  “Take me back to the compound.  I’ll do everything I can to interface the Telchak device with the sarcophagus. Let Miss Baldrich go.”

“That’s unacceptable.”  Dave’s whine interjected, shrill and nasal.  “Our orders were to bring you both back.”

“She can’t help.  She knows nothing about this.” Somehow, Glinda felt certain that Sam didn’t turn to face Dave, that her entire attention remained focused on the fifth man.

“Still. Those were the orders.” The fifth man again, seemingly blasé, his voice almost bored.

Glinda heard him move back towards the stump, and some of the greenery to her right shifted.  “Miss Baldrich—I believe you’re still in there.”

“She’s not.”  Strong, clear, Sam sounded completely convincing.

But her interjection was drowned out by the fifth man’s yell. “Dave!”

“What?”

To Glinda’s ears, Dave sounded close—as if he’d stationed himself at the entrance to the hiding place.  She found herself moving backwards, away from the sound.

“Go get the old one.”

Apparently, Dave wasn’t on board with this plan.  A pause reached across the clearing on the other side of the stump, and then his voice broke it—even whinier than it had been before. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the runt of the litter.”

“Aw, come on, Jenkins.”

A sigh—vociferous enough to reach Glinda’s ears, erupted from Jenkins. “Dave—just do it.”

“She’s not there.”  Still collected, Sam’s voice carried no hint of the desperation that would have given her away.

“I think she is, Colonel.”

“Just take me, Jenkins.  Take me back to the barn, and I will complete the sarcophagus.”

“I have my orders.”

A stalemate.  For several long, drawn moments, silence reigned.  Then, leaves crumbling under moving feet signaled someone walking, but, on the other side of the stump, Glinda couldn’t even catch a hint of who it was. She searched the canopy, but could see nothing of what occurred just beyond.

“Dave—get in there.”  Growly interjected this, seemingly from farther than before.  Perhaps he’d moved back to the ATVs?  Glinda couldn’t tell, she merely prepared herself to see Whiny Dave emerge through the greenery.

“Don’t do it, Dave.”  Sam’s voice resounded through the glade, strong, and resilient.

“Men.” The single syllable seemed to be a signal.  Immediately, the sounds of weapons being shouldered clicked through the clearing on the other side of the stump.  Glinda could imagine it—the five men and their rifles pointed at Sam.  She found herself staring at the zat warming her hand, wondering how quickly she could shoot it if she needed to.

But instead of gunfire, a sudden grunt broke the impasse, coupled with the grating sound of flesh on flesh.  Glinda jumped, clamping her free hand over her mouth as she heard Sam’s tiny cry—and her subsequent struggle for balance, for control.

“I said I had to bring you back alive.  I didn’t say anything about bringing you back unharmed.”  Jenkins was moving—his voice wafting around the clearing. “And I didn’t say anything at all about the brat you’re carrying.” 

Another hit—this one sounded harder.  Glinda listened as something—someone?—hit the ground with a thud. And again, her imagination filled in what her vision couldn’t.  She could see Sam on the ground, in pain, see Jenkins, or Whiny Dave, or Barry preparing to hit her again—readying a kick or the butt of a rifle.

And within Glinda again burgeoned the Warrior. 

Because no matter her own desire to get out of this mess, she could not— _would not_ —sit by and allow the Colonel to be harmed.  Whatever they’d been before they’d had lunch, before the blue light had paralyzed them and allowed their capture, they had become friends in the past few hours. Closer than friends, if one could be frank about it. 

And whatever else she’d learned about herself in the past several hours, it was that she was capable of much _much_ more than copying and collating and setting seams. She’d found _herself_ in these hours.  She’d found the woman—the girl—she’d once been. The girl who believed in heroes and villains and the overwhelming importance of love.  The girl she’d been before she’d been saddled with grief and loss and the end of wishing. 

She’d been shielding herself during all these years.  Not wanting to be hurt, she’d been preventing herself from feeling at all.  Satisfaction wasn’t the same as joy—and no one— _ever_ —had found happiness at the bottom of a file folder.  And seeing the Colonel on the verge of such joy—and sharing even vicariously in that joy—meant more to Glinda Baldrich than she dared to express. 

She forced her way through the quasi-tunnel, zat in hand. Breaching the entrance to her hiding place, Glinda took in the scene without blinking—she’d already seen it in her mind’s eye—Sam curled up on the ground, a man standing over her, preparing to strike again.  Glinda’s hand rose automatically, and she pointed the zat at the man, firing without even thinking about it. He jerked backwards and hit the ground hard.

Lying prone in the shelter of the bushes, she turned her aim towards the man nearest her, but stopped at Sam’s hoarse shout—and at the sudden shift of the other men—and the haste with which their weapons trained themselves on her.

“Don’t shoot her!”  Sam unfolded herself, grimacing as she braced a hand on the ground.  The right side of her face nearly glowed—an angry, red welt forming on her cheek.  At Sam’s feet, the man named Jenkins lay still, sprawled at an unnatural angle in the leaves and groundcover, but the Colonel didn’t spare him a glance as she appealed to the man nearest where Glinda lay in the shrubbery near the stump.  “Please—don’t shoot her.”

Eyes narrowed, the man reached down and grabbed the zat out of Glinda’s hand. Handing it to one of his companions, he jerked his head towards her—a nonverbal order, and none too gentle.

Summoning up all of her bravado, Glinda crawled out of the bush, dragging the big purse behind her.  She knelt, and then, using the stump for balance, pushed herself to a standing position, ignoring her creaking joints and the leaves that fell from her hair and clothing. She refused to appear cowed—refused to cower.  She drew herself up to her full height and glared at her captors down the length of her elegant nose.

“Well, Colonel Carter.”  Glinda recognized this voice as belonging to the one called Barry.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him step closer to Sam, grinning a crooked, nasty little smile.  “It appears that your pants were on fire, after all.”

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

“The shooting’s stopped”

“I noticed that.”  Jack made his way quickly through the dense undergrowth, dodging trees as he jogged deeper into the woods.  He ignored the stiffness of his joints, the stitch in his side, and the pain that radiated up from his knee.  The barrel of the shotgun he held gleamed when it caught the light of the sun as it permeated the tall canopy of trees.

Daniel ran a few yards behind, his Glock in his hand.  Far behind him, came the Goa’uld.  That Jack wasn’t more concerned with what position the clone took in their little parade meant more than he cared to admit. His normal mode of operation would have been to secure the bad guy before heading off into the unknown. Today, however, he just didn’t care.

Taking the time to do that would have meant losing the trail—a trail that was already thinner and more diluted than he dared to acknowledge.

He followed the noises eastward—there had been several of them—all emanating from the same portion of the forest.  He’d heard some shouting, and some rough laughter.  It had echoed on the early morning breeze, wafting towards them like a buoy’s anchor line drifted on the ocean.  His tactical training returned with a vengeance, and he found himself fixing the location in his mind, and then finding markers in the woods that led towards the target.

Behind him, Daniel’s breathing had degraded into a concentrated huffing, and Jack fought back a smile.

They had laughed about this just the other day.  By the end of his time at the SGC, before he’d resigned and married Vala, the archaeologist had been in top shape.  Now, his life sandwiched between raising his kids and being stationed in museum basements cataloguing old stuff all day, his favorite means of exercise had become a treadmill.  Hardly the same thing as running pell-mell through alien forests being pursued by Jaffa. Three miles on one of those machines equated in no way with a cross-terrain jaunt like the one they currently suffered.

Jack had run into the same problem—only he wasn’t quite as dedicated to the treadmill.  He still had twenty or so stubborn pounds that Sam hadn’t managed to get off him in the time since her return.  Of course, her own exercise regimen had slacked off lately too, due to her constant nausea and all over pregnancy lethargy.  In the meantime, Jack had given up—figuring that the General in charge of Homeworld Security could afford to ignore the threat of love handles gone bad.

He’d figured wrong.

He slowed as he noticed a dip in the forest floor, and was surprised to find himself on one side of a creek.  Too large to simply jump, he searched for, and found, a narrow point a few yards down the way.  Daniel drew up alongside him as he turned towards it.

“What’s that?”

“A creek?”  Jack glared at the archaeologist before brushing past him towards the ford.

“No—the sound.  Do you hear that?”

Jack paused at on the sandy edge of the creek, holding his body taut, listening for what Daniel was hearing.

A new sound rang through the woods—a raring sputter—the starting grind of engines.  He looked up higher on the bank where Daniel stood, hands on his hips, a keen expression lighting his features.

“What do you think they are?  Not trucks.” Jack sorted through sounds in his mind, making adjustments, figuring how much the distance would distort the noise.

“Quads?” Daniel holstered his Glock, snapping it into place.  With both hands, he took his glasses off and dried his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“It would have to be—with woods like this.  Some sort of four wheel drive vehicle.”

“Can you guess how many?”

“Four?” Jack shrugged. “Five, maybe.”

The Goa’uld appeared at Daniel’s side, his normally composed face shining with sweat.  Taking a few deep breaths, he bent down and braced his hands on his knees, struggling to control his rapid breathing.  From his distress, it was apparent that he didn’t use even a treadmill.  Probably relied on his cloned snake to keep from getting fat.

The thought made Jack grimace, which he hid by rolling his eyes up to where the sun had risen higher in the sky.  He hated not knowing what he was up against.  And the one among them who possibly did know was currently sweating all over his hand-made silk shirt.  And yet, Jack’s training—his desperation—wouldn’t let him _not_ inquire.

Tamping down his pride, he turned to the clone.  “Ba’al.”

“Yes, General O’Neill.”

“How many guys does the other Ba’al have working for him?”

The Goa’uld considered a moment, wiping his brow and cheeks with his hand. Still breathing deeply, he turned his dark eyes up towards Jack’s.  “Five or six, from what I recall.  He believed himself to be in need of Jaffa, but could not find any, of course. So he found some men of the Tau’ri who considered themselves to be mercenaries.”

“Ex-military?” Daniel’s brows lowered, his expression wary

“Probably people who couldn’t make it into the services in the first place.” Jack sighed, then took a huge step across the creek, his heel sinking deep into the sandy soil on the other side. Hopping up onto the other bank, he spared a glance behind him and watched as Daniel followed his lead. “Sometimes they think that they’re badder than they really are.”

Shaking mud off his boot, the General set off again, following the diminishing sound of the ATVs towards the eastern portion of the forest.

“So, we’re looking at five or six mercenary types.”  Extending a hand to help Ba’al across the creek, Daniel then pushed the clone up the bank and set off in a fast jog after the General.

“Just because they didn’t make the cut didn’t mean that they aren’t dangerous.”

“No.” Daniel’s tone showed his full agreement with his friend.  “Sometimes that kind of guy is more dangerous than the trained soldiers.”

“Why is that?” 

Ba’al’s question had Daniel turning his head to answer.  “Because often, people like that have a more laxed moral view than other people.”

“Why should that matter?”

Jack’s answer was curt, thrown over his shoulder as he shoved his way through the thick bushes and undergrowth.  “Because that kind of guy often doesn’t have anything to live for.”

For a while, the only sound was the crushing of vegetation underfoot as they moved quickly through the woods.  Jack found his first landmark—a huge oak tree—and then turned slightly towards his second—a large break in the trees that could turn out to be a meadow.

“Jack—” Daniel’s voice called out from behind him.  “Jack—what do we do when we find them?  If they’re from Earth, we can’t just go in with guns blazing. They might now know what they’re supporting.”

In truth, the General had thought about that.  Considered that whoever had taken his wife and secretary had been acting under the influence of a drug such as had been used on the SGC by Hathor, or some other sort of Goa’uld mind control.  During the long drive to this part of the country, he’d asked himself what he would do if they were plain old Earthlings and not aliens that had kidnapped the two most important women in his life.

And somewhere along the way, he’d decided that it didn’t really matter. That he really didn’t care.

In for a penny, he’d figured.  In for a pounding.  Wasn’t that the cliché?

Unexpectedly, the vegetation stopped on the side of a path—five or six feet wide, the dark earth pounded hard and flat by decades of use.  It had been a long time since Jack had been on a trail ride—but he could recognize the distinctive markings left by shod horses. He turned onto the trail—recalling that the Mayfield property had been listed as agricultural—perhaps a horse farm of some sort?  And most trails then, would lead to the barn.

Daniel followed him out into the path, calling after him. “We can’t just go in shooting, can we?”

But Jack didn’t answer. 

He merely sped up into a run.


	15. Stalled

**_Taken_ **

****

****

**_Stalled_ **

 

 

At least the Colonel seemed to be feeling better.

Although the redness on her cheek seemed to be coloring into quite a spectacular bruise, the rest of her coloring had pinked up quite nicely. Such an improvement over the greenish hue of nausea.

Of course, Glinda acknowledged that the reasons behind her recovery had been impressive as well—enough so that the whole convoy of four wheeled drive conveyances had needed to stop in their paths and wait for their captive to hurl herself—quite literally—into a stand of young oak trees.  Despite her concern for her companion, Glinda had enjoyed watching the goons' discomfort at the Colonel's distress, and found herself smiling outright when Sam had formally pardoned herself with meek gentility for her —in her own words—gastrointestinal pyrotechnics.

As the Colonel had emerged from the copse, she'd wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and Glinda had keenly felt the loss of the big purse. She'd had some hard candies in the depths of it that might have helped to lessen the bitter taste in Sam's mouth.  

Of course, nothing could assuage the bitterness of being caught again.

Or of being frisked.

That particular joy happened to be one that Glinda had heretofore managed to avoid in all her sixty-seven years of life.  Her strict adherence to rules and laws had not necessitated even the most bland brush with the police.  Even with the heightened security at the airports, she'd packed and dressed methodically enough whilst travelling to never raise the red flags of suspicion. Passing through the metal detectors, and once being given a close "wanding" had apparently been scrutiny enough for the Travel Safety Administration to trust her.

Evidently, her current status as an escaped captive didn't qualify her for the same regard. 

She'd been driven back to the compound seated awkwardly sideways on the front of one of her captors vehicles.  The goon squad had not re-bound her hands, but she _had_ been thoroughly searched, and the guards had confiscated everything but the clothes on her back.  Glinda felt curiously naked without her purse on her shoulder, and the sense of loss she'd felt when they had found and taken the cell phone from her pocket had been acute.  The loss of those items, she'd found, mattered more to her than her current state of appearance.

Because the quick inventory she'd taken as she'd mounted the quad had been, to be perfectly honest, a little shocking.  Skirt torn, shirt untucked and filthy, knees and hands caked with dirt, sans panty hose and shoes, Glinda hardly recognized herself. And she couldn't help but wonder if she didn't rather like herself this way.  There was a strengthening force in one's own action—one's own empowerment. Making those decisions that she would have left to others in the past had filled her to the core with a sense of self that had been loudly absent up until now.

But she still wasn't certain how the Colonel had felt about her emerging from the hiding place behind the trunk.  As of yet, Sam had not said a single word to her.  They'd been ordered to sit together next to the stump for several long, tense minutes while waiting for Jenkins to come around. She'd expected to be chastised for her actions, perhaps given a whispered word of warning. What she had received, however, had been stony silence from the Colonel.

That, undeniably, had dealt the sharpest blow.

The quads made short work of the trip back to the compound. Glinda's assigned henchman, Whiny Dave, had helped her dismount with a seemingly uncharacteristic amount of care, and then grasped her shoulder and led her handily into the barn.

Stepping over the threshold, the wood floor felt soothingly smooth against her mistreated feet.  Prodded on by Whiny Dave, she rounded the first row of shelving units and emerged into the laboratory created by the stainless steel units.

The box looked innocuous in the bright light of day. A glance above her revealed skylights set into the high ceiling of the barn, and the natural illumination made the eerie scene she'd escaped just hours before seem less frightening—less foreign. The metal box appeared even more like a chest freezer now, the bluish light issuing forth from its interior diluted in the more yellow light of the morning sun.  Glinda stared at it apprehensively, pausing in her steps, until Dave prodded her with a finger to her scapula.  Ripping her attention from the sarcophagus, she stepped towards the dais, and then moved past it and around, to the opposite side of the lab.

Directly across from her sat a tall unit, its doors shut tight. Even in the bright light of day, however, the faint hum and unearthly glow of that particular cabinet made her stomach churn.  Glinda knew what squirmed behind those doors; what lithe, glistening bodies swam in their individual jars within.  And in the far back reaches of her mind, she allowed the thought to germinate. 

Were the symbiotes part of the plan now?  Now that she and Sam had shown themselves to be decidedly uncooperative, would this be their punishment?

Involuntarily, she shivered, stamping down the fear that arose with that thought.

A familiar blond head in transit behind the cabinet caught her eye, and she followed it behind the steel shelving until Sam emerged in the space between the units.  Growly, the Colonel's handler, shoved her roughly towards the dais, his rifle casting an ominous ebony reflection in the smooth steel of the cabinetry.

"I'm telling you."  The Colonel drew herself upright and turned towards the guard, her back to the sarcophagus. "I don't know how to meld the two technologies.  It's not like simply rigging a suit return hose to pull air through LEM space module canister sockets stocked with CM cubes."

Glinda watched as the men exchanged glances, fighting an odd sense of bemusement. Behind her, Whiny Dave shifted from foot to foot, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Carl and Barry shrug at each other.

Sam groaned, rolling her eyes.  "Come on, you guys.  Haven't any of you seen the movie?"

Glinda bit back a smile, dropping her chin to the floor. She knew precisely to what the Colonel referred.  But then, she'd also been asked once to transcribe portions of the command staff dust-up. That sort of thing tended to stick with you.

Barry frowned.  "We don't watch much sci-fi."

"It's not sci-fi."  Sam's sigh said volumes.  "It's in Apollo Thirteen. But then, some of us also read the actual mission reports."

Making the sound for which he had been named, Growly pointed toward the box with the barrel of his rifle.  "We're not talking about movies, here, Colonel.  We're talking about the sarcophagus."

"That's what I was trying to explain.  The technologies aren't compatible."  She turned and stepped over a grouping of wires, gesturing at the now-closed panel on the side of the box.  "This sarcophagus is Earth technology. The Telchak device is Ancient in origin. The two just can't be plugged into each other.  It's like a Chihuahua and a Great Dane.  They just don't quite fit. Think square peg, round hole."

"And yet you managed to produce a weapon from the Telchak device that would defeat my Kull warriors."

The voice came from behind them, and Glinda turned to see a man enter the barn from the front entrance.  Sickeningly familiar, with his elegant dress and well-groomed beard, his expression reeked of condescension, and his manner of impatience. 

Glinda's gaze flitted to Sam just in time to see her frown, her top teeth worrying at her bottom lip. 

"So you see, Colonel."  The Goa'uld made his way into the laboratory casually, deliberately. "I should warn you that your capabilities have long since been found out."

"Ba'al."

"Colonel Carter."  He stopped a few feet from her, teeth bared into a veneer of a smile.  "Again.  Such a delight."

Sam's answering smile didn't reach her eyes.  "If seeing us recaptured gives you such joy, we could always escape again. Double the pleasure."

His dark eyes gleamed as he surveyed the scene before giving a casual shake of his head.  "I hardly think that is necessary.  It's much more gratifying having you here, where your cogitative abilities can be of use to me."

Sam regarded him lengthily, her blue eyes hard.  "Where's the other clone?"

"Which one?"

"The one that you plugged into Doctor Lee."

"Ah—my not-so-identical twin."  Ba'al's gaze flickered to a point behind Glinda, to the closed doors on the other side of the barn.  "He will be joining us shortly.  After his last encounter with you, he is something of a new man."

"So you put him into the spare clone?"  Sam paused, her posture evaluative.  "And where is the real Doctor Lee?"

This time, the answer came even more quickly.  "Nowhere you need to be concerned about."

"I tend to disagree with that."  The Colonel looked down at the sarcophagus and touched it lightly with her fingertips.  "He's a friend."

"And at the moment, he is a pawn."  Conversational, the Goa'uld's tone also betrayed his contempt. "Surely you can understand that."

"What I understand about this situation is that you took us in order to hold us in exchange for the Telchak device.  Another clone has brought that to you—a clone that you engineered expressly for that purpose, I might add."  With her fingertips, Sam combed the hair that had come loose from her braid back behind her ear.  "You no longer need us for ransom—so let us go."

"Your skills are still required."

"For what, exactly?"

"As a means to an end."

Sam thought about that for a minute before answering, her voice low. "I won't help you infest our planet with Goa'ulds."

"Ah, I see."  Ba'al raised a hand and fidgeted with the button on the wristband of his sleeve. "But we have no desire to infest the Earth with our kind.  Some might say that there are too many of us to begin with."

"Then what's with the jars in that cabinet?"

Ba'al's brows rose.  "So you have seen the nursery."

"I did some looking around."

Ba'al walked to the cabinet, stepping in a practiced manner around the wires strewn upon the floor.  Touching the closed doors with a palm, he hesitated briefly before turning back to face the Colonel.  "Let us just say that they provide me with a bit of insurance."

Glinda watched as Sam cocked her head to one side, her braid sliding onto her shoulder.  The Colonel and the Goa'uld stood mere feet apart—she at the sarcophagus and he next to the incubator cabinet.  It seemed that they rested in a stand-off—both powerful personages, both vehement in their beliefs. Around the laboratory, Glinda watched the men as they tensed, preparing for whatever confrontation seemed eminent. Straightening, she searched around her for an exit, or a place to hide.  Or for something that could be used as a weapon.

But the room seemed devoid of anything with which she could inflict damage. Books, papers, a few computer terminals that appeared as if they would be unwieldy in battle. At her feet, wires protruding out from the bottom of the sarcophagus lay taped on the floor—and a fleeting image of the Colonel wrapping a measuring tape around her hands as a garrote caused Glinda to wonder how much force it would take to loosen the electrical cords, and further, how much determination it would take for her to use them.

And bleakly, Glinda wondered if it was even worth it to try.

She faltered a bit, suddenly tired.  Flexing her hands experimentally, she found that her muscles were losing their potency, that the exertions she'd made in the past twenty-four hours had compounded and sapped her strength.  Lack of sleep, lack of nourishment, lack of a sense of security all combined to make her feel older than her sixty-seven years.  Older than she'd ever felt before in all her life. 

Sam's voice broke through Glinda's exhaustion, and she found herself rousing enough to refocus on the Colonel.  "Insurance?  Against what?"

"Against your refusal to lend your skills to our endeavor."

"To create the sarcophagus."

"I have already created it."  Ba'al's voice suddenly rose, his tone angry.  "I am a God, after all.  I possess all knowledge."

"Apparently not."  Sam took a step backwards and around the far end of the box, indicating it with an open palm. "If you need me to finish it for you."

With a suddenness that Glinda found slightly unnerving, the Goa'uld's eyes flashed golden.  His face changed, his jaw tightening.  Moving away from the cabinet, he took a few steps to the opposite side of the lab, stopping near the end of the device.  "My reasons for your participation are my own.  Suffice it to say, dear Colonel Carter, that you will offer your services to this endeavor.  Might I remind you that more is at stake than just your own life?"

Finally, Sam raised her head towards Glinda.  For a painful moment, their eyes met, and the secretary saw what her companion had been hiding.  Worry. Concern.  Fear. 

The expressions were gone from the Colonel's face as soon as they'd arrived, and Glinda took care not to acknowledge she'd seen anything at all. She lowered her face to stare at the floor. 

"Ba'al, I'm tired."  Sam placed both hands on the box, leaning slightly.  " _Really_ tired. All I want is to take my people and go home."

"Your condition is of concern to me, Colonel."  The Goa'uld folded his arms in front of his chest. "After all, your efforts may be compromised by your lack of energy."

"So let me get some rest, and talk to Bill.  Get some ideas.  Then I'll help you however I can."

Glinda had never before heard a laugh comprised of so little humor. But the Goa'uld's chuckle seemed infused with something beyond evil—something devoid, even, of humanity.

"I could suggest another means."  Still smiling, Ba'al took long, purposeful strides towards the cabinet again. Without looking away from Sam, he reached out and popped open a door, revealing the Goa'uld larvae writhing within. "Their recuperative powers are quite extraordinary.  You would feel refreshed in a heartbeat."

Glinda didn't think that any of the other people in the barn would have recognized the subtle shift in the Colonel's stance—nor the nearly imperceptible twitch in her jaw.  For all of her bravado, the mere thought of being invaded by one of those beings created a fair amount of anxiety within Sam Carter.  But her face radiated a certain calm—an attitude of careless acceptance. She gathered herself and shrugged, turning to face the Goa'uld.

"Listen, Ba'al.  I'm not trying to be difficult.  No implantation will be necessary.  I just want to make sure that my people are taken care of."

"Your people."

"Yes—Bill, and Miss Baldrich."

"Of course—Miss Baldrich."  The Goa'uld sneered the name more than said it.  His attention turned to where Glinda stood beside Whiny Dave.

At the sound of her name, Glinda peeped up at the lab, at the two strongest figures within it.  Like the Colonel, she found herself standing up straighter under the scrutiny of the alien. Stepping ever closer to the dais, his eyes raked her grimy figure.  "Miss Baldrich.  She who would challenge a God."

"I've done nothing untoward."  Glinda gathered her courage around her and met him straight in his strange, disturbing eyes.  Her voice gained strength as she spoke again.  "At least, not against Him whom I worship."

"And yet you have challenged me.  You have injured some of my guards, and aided in the escape of another of my hostages."

"I have fought against you," Oddly, Glinda found herself smiling. "But you are mistaken if you consider yourself to be deity."

"It is nothing but a difference in definitions."

"That's where you are wrong, sir."  Glinda shook her head, and was further fortified when yet another leaf dislodged itself from her hair and drifted down to the floor. It seemed like kismet—as if she'd calculated the move to draw attention to her hours spent away from him and his guards.  She felt supremely gratified when the Goa'uld's gaze followed the leaf until it disappeared behind the sarcophagus.  When his attention returned to her face, she tilted a brow with a cockiness she was starting to feel again. "It's a difference in ability. My deity possesses some that you clearly lack."

"Such as?"

"Would you like a list?"  Beside her, Whiny Dave shifted, giving her a surreptitious elbow in her ribs. A signal?  Glinda wasn't certain.  She glanced at him from beneath her lashes, then returned her attention to the Goa'uld.  "But perhaps not. I wouldn't want to show any disrespect—however appropriate it might be."

Ba'al opened his mouth to answer her, but another voice made its way into the lab from behind her.  "Brother."

All eyes seemed to turn towards the new voice.  He emerged from the room in which had lain the tank of greenish water, looking somewhat—Glinda searched for the right word— _moist_.  His face and hands—all the skin that was visible above his clothing—seemed puffy. Glinda concluded the distortion probably resulted from the body's time floating in the green liquid environment of the incubation tank.  It was eerie—seeing the two cloned Goa'ulds, so different in appearance, yet with such similar mannerisms.  Now that Glinda had observed them both, she caught the parallels in their walk, the likeness in the way they held themselves.  The Doctor Lee clone held himself in the same arrogant manner as his brother, although the difference in their body types made it seem odd that he should do so.

"You." The original Goa'uld clone watched as his comrade made his way around the outer perimeter of the lab and entered through an opening on one end.  "I see the melding went as planned."

"As well as could be expected."  He lifted a wrist and adjusted his shirt sleeve in a move so reminiscent of his counterpart's that it was chilling.  "Although awakening into this host yet again was indeed discouraging."

"It was the only option."

"I beg to disagree."

"Of course you would."  Ba'al sighed, tweaking one eyebrow aloft.  "But then, that is what caused our rift in the first place."

The Bill clone stopped at the foot of the sarcophagus, glaring at Sam with undisguised anathema.  "And then you brought this one here.  And her friend.  And then you were so pathetically irresponsible as to leave them unguarded."

"Bygones, brother.  It means nothing, now that they are with us again."  Ba'al shrugged.  "And there were perks to their escape."

"Such as?"  The cloned Bill's round face exuded skepticism.

"They did manage to rid me of _you_ —however briefly."

"Enough!" His bald head shining in the light streaming in from above, the Bill clone held out a hand to the assembled throng. "Enough.  We have wasted too much time.  This device must be completed.  Our opportunity lessens by the hour."

"What, do you have an expiration date?"  The Colonel interrupted them with a terse tone. "If so, I vote that we wait it out and see what happens."

The Bill clone rounded the box, jostling past his brother as he made his way to where Sam stood.  "You try my patience."

"Yes." Sam nodded, her hair haloed in the light from above.  "I do."

Inches shorter than the Colonel, he seemed impressive anyway, barrel-chested and superior.  Lifting a pale, doughy hand, he gripped her face between his fingers, turning it with a sharp yank to the left.  He examined her bruised cheek with a leer.  "I see you have been injured."

"It's nothing."  Sam pulled her face free, looking at him down the length of her nose.  "You've had worse."

The corner of the clone's mouth twitched.  "And so will you.  If you do not cooperate."

"I already told the other one."  Quiet, dulcet, Sam's voice carried, nonetheless.  "I will take no part in your scheme. Whatever it is."

"Maybe not to save yourself."

Sam's back straightened, but she remained stubbornly silent.

"Do not mistake my meaning."  The stout body turned, and all of his venom found its way towards Glinda—his narrowed eyes making no mistake as to his target.  "You are not the only one at stake in this endeavor."

And there it was.  The threat Sam had known would happen.  Glinda knew that she stiffened, knew that she hadn't been able to completely swallow the small sound at the back of her throat.  Whiny Dave shifted next to her, seemingly uncomfortable.  He cradled his rifle in his arms, as one would a security blanket, rather than a weapon. 

"If you harm them, then I won't help you."  Sam looked first at the Doctor Lee clone, and then back at Ba'al.

"And if you do not complete the device, then you will all die. You will be of no use to me then." Doctor Lee's twin sidled closer to her. "I believe I already made myself plain.  I have an anxious desire to avail myself of the cells you carry within your body." His hand lifted to her elbow, sliding up her arm to cup her bicep.  "And I can think of no more expedient method of acquiring those cells than making you one with us."

Glinda watched as Sam's hand flexed, and then curled, at her side. She knew that tension, had seen that anger unfurl from inside the Colonel before. 

And the Colonel's next utterance displayed it in the utter loathing contained within a single word.  "Implantation."

"You are aware of what happens to the child when the Goa'uld awakens?"

"I am."

"And you would not want your child to be born still."

With frightening rapidness, Sam's fist came up, targeting the Goa'uld's head. Contrary to his sedentary appearance, his own hand flashed out and grasped her wrist, twisting it back towards her own body.

"Do you really wish to start this, Colonel?"  Spittle formed at the corners of the clone's lips. "I assure you, Taur'i, you will lose."

Sam's throat worked as she swallowed, her lips tight.  As the Goa'uld continued to stare at her, she shook her head—once—her movement stiff.  The Goa'ulded Doctor Lee lowered her hand, finally releasing it near her hip.

"I assure you.  We are in earnest. I would not wish to kill you for your insolence.  Just as you would not wish to merely stand by as your friends—Miss Baldrich here, and Doctor Lee in his cell—are sacrificed on the altar of your stubbornness." More a statement than a question, the pudgy, balding Goa'uld's words pierced not only their intended recipient, but Glinda, as well.

Sam stood completely still for a long, long time.  Glinda could see her profile—the bruised side of her face, the haphazard braid as it lay down her back, her fine nose, and the puffiness surrounding her eye.  She too, stood covered with dirt—leaves, and mud, and the blood dried brown over the bandage's thickness at her knee. 

And somehow, amidst this all, what seemed most obvious was the fullness of Sam's abdomen—the swell of the child therein.  The hand that had been curled into a fist a few moments before now raised and curled protectively around that life.

Raising her head, she sought something from above—absolution? Permission?  Guidance?  But evidently, whatever she needed wasn't forthcoming.  Glinda knew to her core that the Colonel needed some sort of shove. Taking a teeny look at Whiny Dave, she licked her parched lips and spoke—a single word meant to contain volumes. " _Sam_."

And had the Colonel understood?  She turned, her face raw, eyes wide, a flush on the unbruised cheek. Their eyes met and locked, and Glinda forced her meaning across the void.  Too far—they had come too far to give up now.  To sit by and not try to preserve this most innocent of life. Glinda tilted her head to one side, and fought to see through the exhaustion that veiled her eyes. Sam's brows sank in towards each other in question, and Glinda found herself nodding—slowly, intently. Readily. 

With an angry exhalation, Sam turned to face the two Goa'ulds, her shoulders squared.

Ba'al raised his brows, the corners of his mouth edging slightly upward. His every motion screamed victory. "Yes, Colonel Carter?"

And Glinda could practically taste the enmity that dripped from Sam's words as she whispered her answer.  "I'll need a computer."


	16. Standstill

 

****

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Standstill_ **

 

"It appears that you have not made much progress."

Sam's hands stilled on the Telchak device, her eyelids flickering as she stifled yet another sigh.  Glinda watched her face, hidden in part by the long strands of hair still escaped from her braid. The Colonel's expression ventured from annoyed to resigned to placid before she turned and faced Ba'al.

"I'm sorry.  I tried to explain to you that this would take time."

Ba'al lifted an eyebrow and glared down his aquiline nose before responding. "I believe you are aware that we are short on that particular commodity."

Sam's smile exuded courteousness without respect.  "Yes.  In the past half an hour you have reminded me of that several times."

"Perhaps we are concerned that you do not fully understand our sense of urgency."

The Colonel's jaw clenched twice before she answered. "I know that you want it finished now. I know that you _need_ it sooner rather than later.  I can see that you aren't well.  Your brother over there is about to sweat to death. These things I can see." She turned her attention purposefully towards the foot of the now un-lit sarcophagus, where the clone of Doctor Lee had situated himself for the duration. 

"There is no need for insolence."

"And there's no need to nag.  I'm doing the best I can."  The tightness in Sam's voice tore through the lab.  "Believe me.  I know what's at stake.  As do you."

Glinda watched as Ba'al's gaze followed Sam's to where the Bill clone sat on a stool, arms folded over his corpulent form, his face permanently affixed in a sneer. Periodically, he produced a linen handkerchief from a pocket and mopped at his forehead and cheeks, an action that had become familiar to all assembled within the confines of the laboratory. Glinda herself had long since surmised that his prolific condensation arose chiefly from the newly cloned body's time in the cloning tank rather than from any atmospheric discomfort. Although the interior of the barn was brightly lit from above by the skylights, the high roof, time of day, and season combined to prevent the building from becoming too stifling.

She sat on the floor, her back against a cabinet.  At first, the goon squad had threatened to take her back to the house and confine her in the same room from which they had previously escaped, but Sam had insisted that her husband's secretary remain in the barn with them.  Judging by the tone of the Colonel's voice, the point had not been negotiable, and it apparently had not been an important enough issue to argue, because Glinda had been led to her spot and forced down without further discussion.

From her vantage point, she could see the entire laboratory. To her right, at the head of the regeneration machine, Sam had set up her borrowed laptop and had been dithering between it and the dais, where the bulky, oddly carved alien box currently sat next to the open drawer.  The Colonel had thoroughly examined the device and then clicked open a panel on its side, exposing an array of multicolored crystals.  At her barked orders, the men had gathered and delivered to her various items, and she'd immediately started working.

To the left sat the moist, visibly uncomfortable Goa'ulded Doctor Lee clone. The henchmen milled around, patrolling, perhaps, or merely watching.  Their movements seemed to lack either rhyme or reason, except for those of Whiny Dave, who had remained closer to her than had his compadres.  Glinda presumed his proximity was intended to prevent her escape, but how she was expected to attempt that particular feat remained a mystery—surrounded as she currently remained by men and aliens.

That, and her position on the floor had caused certain parts of her anatomy to lose sensation.  She'd always found running to be a difficult proposition when she could feel neither her legs nor her posterior.  Glancing around to make certain she had no audience, she scooched around on the floor, wiggling this way and that, trying to stay limber and ready. She closed her eyes as some feeling returned to her legs and nether regions.  Pins and needles—she'd always despised that feeling of awakening limbs.

"Would you like a seat, Ma'am?"

Startled, Glinda held rigid against her urge to jerk upright. Focusing upwards, she saw Whiny Dave standing at her side, holding a small metal stool in the hand not grasping the rifle.  Backless, the three-legged seat held the dubious promise of offering only slightly more support than did the floor, but still, she found herself accepting gratefully.

She stood, unfolding her lanky frame from where she'd settled in front of a bookshelf, then shuffled stiffly to one side as the guard placed the stool on the floor where she'd just been.  He offered her an arm as she approached the new arrangement, which she took after the barest moment's hesitation, bracing herself on it as she lowered herself to sit.   Her legs felt in turn wobbly and stiff, and his help could not have been more welcome.

Looking up at him, she found herself nodding, smiling at the young man with a frank sincerity.  "Thank you, David."

He looked surprised at her graciousness, but recovered quickly, pursing his lips briefly before replying with a dismissive, "Whatever."

He jostled around a bit before leaning back against a shelving unit, and Glinda used the moment to study him.  Young—no more than twenty five—he already appeared tired, somehow. His blondish hair had long since begun to thin on top, which he'd made no attempt to hide. Languid light blue eyes, blond lashes and brows, and the beginnings of a reddish five o'clock shadow made for a face that, though hardly repulsive, was not memorable, either. His was a face that would be easily overlooked—simply forgotten. 

A quick look around the laboratory allowed Glinda to study the other guards. Jenkins had long since headed back to the main house, mumbling something about checking up on Phil. The four that remained in the lab ran the gamut of size and temperament.  Growly was a burly man, bald and aggressive.  Lean and tall, Barry seemed calm, but volatile—as if something constantly festered within him.  Carl, stocky, yet healthily so, just didn't appear to be all there.  His look held a vacancy, of sorts, as if all the eagerness in the world could compensate for not having yet quite grasped the meaning of things transpiring around him.  The General would have verbalized some acerbic, pithy comment about a man such as Carl—most likely involving drawers lacking knives, or elevators that didn't reach the top floor.  Glinda's father would have said that Carl had fallen out of the stupid tree and managed to hit every branch on his way down.

Whiny Dave, on the other hand, seemed different.  Wounded, somehow, as if he'd been a lifelong outcast and still had no idea exactly why.  Thin and bony, his frame did not fit the image Glinda had in her head of a mercenary. Granted, that image had been carefully nurtured during years of enjoying James Bond films. But where else was one to discover what passed for 'normal' within the ranks of paid thugs?  No resource existed within Glinda's realm of knowledge where interested individuals could study up on the goings-on of such a subculture, even if one should anticipate the necessity of such an exercise. Had she known that she would be in the company of hired mercenaries within her near future, she would have schooled herself on their motivations and commonalities. 

As it was, Glinda felt as if she were receiving quite a lot of on-the-job training lately.  Possibly too much, should the truth be told.  Perhaps upon her return to the Pentagon, she would pen a "how-to" pamphlet for those in the position to someday be kidnapped by alien life forms. Situational etiquette could be discussed, as well as various uses for items commonly found in one's pockets, or oversized bags.

But she digressed.

Henchmen on the silver screen always seemed to be physically fit and agile, taken to attiring themselves in matching uniforms—normally with zippers up the fronts.  Glinda believed the garments to be called 'coveralls', and they always carried a logo embroidered on a pocket over the left pectoral.

The men assembled in the laboratory did not resemble those orbiting in the space station with Ernst Stavro Blofeld or any of the rest of the Spectre minions.  And there was not a coverall in sight.  Merely sturdy denim trousers, and a straight split for shirting between flannel and fleece. And in the time since the Colonel had sat herself down to work, Glinda had perused the congregation and found them observably lacking in logos.

Glinda knew for a fact that Goa'uld utilized markings in identifying their Jaffa. She'd asked about a tattoo on the forehead of the General's friend when she'd seen him in a photograph—a swarthy, virile looking character with a head roughly the size of a small planetoid. Emblazoned between his dark brows shone a gold oval containing a gilded coiled serpent.  General O'Neill had explained that the Goa'uld branded Jaffa with the markings to differentiate between the varied sects and statuses.

Having recalled that bit of information, she'd performed completely non-surreptitious surveillance.  None of the men around these particular aliens sported tattoos on their foreheads. Jenkins had a mark that Glinda had thought might be just such a brand, but it had turned out to be a mole. And no other characteristics served as demarcation amongst the men.  They appeared, for all their bravado and muster, like ordinary men. With semi-automatic weapons.

The thought beckoned that these men might not be true believers—they might just be performing their labors for something as crass as a paycheck. However Glinda felt about their occupational choices in general, she could appreciate the significance of that discovery.  If money could purchase loyalty, then that allegiance became an article of trade.

Next to her, Whiny Dave adjusted his hold on his weapon, and Glinda found herself drawn to study his hands.  Long, lean, with shallow palms and knobby knuckles, his hands appeared more suited for chess playing than for weapon wielding.  They were an artist's hands, or a scholar's. Or a musician's—perhaps he'd taken piano lessons as a child.  His nails were clean, and neatly trimmed.

His mother had taught him well.

"What does your mother think about all this?"  The question came out before Glinda could bite her tongue to stop it.

"Excuse me?"  David's brows lowered, eyes narrowing in response.

"Presumably you have a mother."  Glinda mentally shrugged and sallied forth.  "What does she think about your working here?"

David glared at her for a full beat before turning his attention towards his weapon.  Sliding a hand along its barrel, he pulled his lips in towards his teeth, simultaneously puffing out his cheeks.  He looked not unlike a squirrel.  A squirrel at odds with his own choice of trees.

"You will have to pardon me, young man."  Glinda adjusted herself on her seat, tilting her head to and fro—the importance of keeping one's self limber had been learned well in the past hours.  "I find myself in need of conversation.  Old women, you know—we do tend to babble."

But still he didn't speak, merely stood there, trying to look more foreboding than confuddled. Glinda's practiced eye judged his attempt as a failure.

"So, from your silence, I'm assuming that your mother has no knowledge of your occupation, nor of the character of your employers." Glinda watched his face change—a tightening between his brows, a tilt down at the corner of his mouth. "Another assumption would be that she would be none too happy about the choices that her son is making. And although I would wish to believe that no mother would be delighted with the career of paid thug for her son, your reluctance to discuss the matter tells me that the former is more likely than the latter."

Silence stretched for a long pause, and Glinda turned her attention back to Sam, as she removed the crystals one by one from their assembly inside the Telchak box. The Colonel placed each on one a piece of paper, where she labeled it before reaching for another one. At her side, the Goa'uld waited and watched, his manner aloof even while his dark, intent eyes missed nothing.

Whiny Dave moved from foot to foot beside her, the rifle obvious in his hands—held like a life-line.  After a long, deep breath, his voice emerged low, almost a whisper. "It's not like that."

Glinda pretended, for a moment, that she hadn't heard him. She kept her gaze fastened on the Colonel, on her face as it became more and more aggravated, as her expression became increasingly taut.  Sitting up straight in her chair, Sam stared at her diagram, and then turned towards the computer screen. She entered some numbers, then scowled as the results appeared on the monitor.  Impatiently, her fingers pushed her hair behind her ear yet again, then returned to tap a staccato beat at her lips.

The Colonel's entire body radiated frustration, from the nervous motions of her fingers, to the way her eyes had gone unnaturally bright. Her shoulders had hunched forward, her back stiff. 

Glinda exhaled lightly, speaking without looking at the young man at her side. "Then what is it like?"

"It's just a job."

She did look at him, then, turning just her head to catch his eye. "You know as well as I do that's a fallacy.  If you believed in your actions here, you would have fired into the bushes with Carl. Your suggestions were ridiculous—not those of a man comfortable with murder."

He blinked once, holding her gaze.  Color had risen in his cheeks, making him appear even younger, more vulnerable. As if attempting to dissuade himself rather than her, he drew in a deep, deep breath, and then let it out loudly. Tapping his thumb loudly on the stock of his rifle, he shook his head.  "It's just a job."

Glinda felt her left eyebrow raise.  Skeptical, she bore directly into his eyes, knowing she'd touched home when he looked away, his frown profound.

With an internal smile, Glinda returned her attention to the Colonel.

Across the dais, the Goa'uld leaned over Sam again, crowding her with his body. Her elbow bumped his side as she reached for the crystals and began reinserting them into the set-up. She glared without referencing him, her motions curt, and precise.

"Have you discovered the obstruction to its functionality?"

Glinda watched as Sam fought back what would most assuredly have been a coarse retort.  Eyes narrowed, she didn't so much as pause in her motions as she finally said, "Nope."

"For what reason have you replaced the crystals?"

"Just a hunch, Ba'al."

"I have previously attempted this strategy.  As has my brother."  The Goa'uld straightened, turning his head to look at Doctor Lee's clone. "Neither of us could gain a satisfactory reaction with this method."

"Yeah, well, my human brain needs to see what happens." She shut the compartment door and leaned awkwardly over, out of Glinda's view.  With a sharp click, the sarcophagus thrummed to life, the clear window in the top of the box glowing blue once more.

For a moment, all held still, but then a strangled sound from the Colonel spoke volumes.

"I believe I told you that this strategy would fail."

"I have to do things in my own way, Ba'al."  Again, she shoved her hair back behind her ear. Sitting up, Glinda watched as she suddenly pulled the elastic out of her braid and finger-combed her hair back into a pony-tail, re-braiding it deftly.  Once it was secured again, she lifted the Telchak device back out and opened the compartment door again.

"Regardless, my patience is wearing thin."

Even from some distance away, Glinda could hear Sam's sigh.

"Well, if you wanted it to go faster, you could help, you know." Sam turned back to the multi-hued crystals, picking up some sort of tool with which to prod at them. Hand poised over the array, she blinked up at the Goa'uld.  "We have successfully worked in conjunction before, you recall."

Ba'al's face froze, his eyes turning slightly glassy.  "Do not presume to know our motivations."

"I think I know you well enough to call that one, Ba'al." She'd returned to her work, her full attention back on the task at hand.  She spoke with an air of distraction, as if not really paying attention to herself.  Glinda suspected the affectation to be more deliberate—as if she were trying to gather information.  "It probably has something to do with the fact that you don't know what you're doing. Some glitch in the cloning process that doesn't transfer the entire memory?" 

"Your insolence is ill advised, Colonel Carter."

"Oh, crap in a bucket."  Sam lifted her face from the Telchak device, her fingers stilled on its innards. "If you don't mind, I'm getting a little tired of hearing that one.  Can you please find some other way of expressing your dissatisfaction with my work?"

He shifted on his feet, moving closer to her, peering over her shoulder at the device and its components.  "I could remind you that your life is on the line."  Dropping his hand, he laid his fingertips to her braid, using it to tilt her head so he could study the bruise on her cheek. "You appear to have forgotten the perilous nature of your predicament."

Sam glared up at him for long, taut moments before forcing her lips into a hint of a grin.  "Yes, well. We all can't be as smart as you, now can we?"

"Furthermore, I grow tired of your flippant manner."  His fingertips skimmed the hollow of her bruised cheek. "I would believe that your precarious situation would spur you to a quicker resolution of the issue at hand."

Sam's eyes closed as the Goa'uld increased the pressure on her cheek, his digits making deep imprints into the already battered skin there.

Glinda watched as the Colonel fought against the impulse to cry out, saw her hands flex, and then flatten themselves on the desk in front of her. With a supreme effort, she turned her face away just enough that the Goa'uld's touch slipped a bit, and then she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.  "I worked with this device for weeks on end.  I know what it's supposed to do."

"As do we."

"What I'm trying to tell you is that it should have worked." Quiet, her voice carried, nonetheless. "Something else is happening here."

Ba'al moved out from behind her and rounded the table to examine the now-empty drawer.  "Enlighten me."

Sam sat upright, arching her back in a stretch.  Stifling another smart remark, she gave the alien box one more searching look before turning her face up towards the Goa'uld. "Listen—I know what's at stake here.  What I'm telling you is that something's wrong with this device.  Someone has been messing around with it."

"In what way?"

"Well, here, the crystal core has been tampered with.  Ancients, like the Goa'uld, use crystals as circuitry."

"I am aware."

"When Selmack and I were formulating the weapons we used against the Kull warriors, they were laid out in a distinctly different pattern. It's all wonky now." She leaned forward and touched a specific piece. "And this one was reversed in direction completely."

"Does that make such a difference?"

"It could.  I won't know until I can see my previous research and whatever testing Bill was doing at Area 51."

"We do not have time for that."

"It's what I need, Ba'al."  She raised her hands, palms up.  "I can't do anything else without Bill's help, and more information."

"You're stalling."

"No, I'm not."  The Colonel shook her head.  Eyes wide, chin set, she looked up at the cloned Goa'uld.  For the shortest of breaths, her emotions rang clear on her bruised face—her fear, and frustration, and anger.  She swallowed once, twice, before exhaling sharply.  "Don't you think that I would do it if I could?  I know the alternatives.  I don't want to die here, in a barn.  I don't want to see Miss Baldrich hurt, or anyone else.  I just want to go home."

Ba'al's leer hardened, the corner of a nostril twitching upward even as his lips thinned.

"Well then," his tone was even, lethal, and cold. "Perhaps you just need a little more motivation."

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

With every step he promised himself that he'd start exercising regularly again. His chest burned, and the omnipresent cramp in his side had become so a part of his 'normal' that he'd only have started noticing it if it suddenly disappeared. 

The horse trail led in a wide swoop around the property, crossing the hard-packed rut that passed for a road twice before leading back into the deep woods. Jack and Daniel had scouted ahead rather than following it exactly, mapping it mentally in case they needed to find it again.  Their old habits had come back without fanfare—they found themselves communicating mostly through hand signals, and spreading out in a search pattern rather than clumping together, using peripheral vision and instinct as helps. 

Halfway through yet another copse of trees, Jack found himself smiling to himself through his discomfort.  Turns out all those trees on other planets weren't so alien after all. A forest was a forest was a forest—be it in Virginia, or P3C-whatever.

The second time the bridle path crossed the road and headed east, they'd hoofed along it for more than a mile before it had intersected with a more substantial gravel road.  Slipping back into the cover of the woods, the three men had followed it for another mile or so before the road had dead-ended into a wide empty yard covered in gravel sitting close to a quintessential farm house.

Immediately, Jack had gone still, crouching behind a stand of thin aspen saplings, his shotgun halfway to his shoulder, the barrel resting on his bent knee. White fencing sat between him and the expansive lawn that lay just beyond the gravelled drive. The property spread out before him neat, and plain. Nothing stood out to signal anything amiss. Too perfect.  Too static.

A normal farm would have some activity around—livestock, perhaps, or a dog. Children playing in the vivid green of the grass, or laundry waving on a line in the morning breeze. This property seemed bereft of anything but the house, and the outline of another structure beyond. A chill crept up the General's spine, making the fine hair at his nape rise. 

A faint footstep and a familiar voice in his ear alerted him to Daniel's presence.  "There wasn't a picture on the website.  I can't tell you for sure that this is the house."

"Where's Ba'al?"

"Behind me."  Jack could hear the faint shushing of skin on fabric as Daniel turned his head to look around. "He went down like a lead balloon—trying to catch his breath."

"Apparently Goa'ulds don't work out."

A snort signaled Daniel's assent.  "Apparently, neither do Generals."

Jack left that alone, too grateful for respite to argue.

A second later, his friend spoke again.  "So, what do you think?"

Jack considered for a moment.  The building was a long, low ranch house, with whitewashed patios and minimal vegetation abutting it.  Despite the warmth of the morning, and the height of the sun, the windows remained closed, obscured by curtains.  The long drive had ended in a gravel parking area, in which no cars were stationed. The place felt off, somehow. And he'd always trusted that part of himself that told him when something felt wrong. "This has got to be it."

"Why do you say that?"

"Location fits.  And look." He nodded towards the porch, where a door had just swung open.

Onto the patio stepped a man, a white bandage clearly visible on his nose, bruising rampant across his forehead and one eye.  Despite his injuries, he carried a large weapon in both hands, which he raised to his shoulder, fitting the scope to his unswollen eye as he swung around, surveying the property.

Daniel hunkered down next to Jack in the stand, both men holding completely still as the guard on the porch swung his scope towards the trees behind which they hid.  The shiny black barrel of the rifle panned right, then left, and then lowered as its owner squinted intently into the trees.  He took another step towards the steps of the patio, only to turn back when the door opened again.

Jack watched as he conversed with someone behind the door—from his distance their voices weren't audible—finally allowing himself to breathe normally when the guard turned back into the house, the door swinging shut loudly behind him.

Daniel's tone was light.  "Yeah—I'd say this is the place."

"Unless crime in the sticks is rampant enough to necessitate that kind of firepower." The General balanced his shotgun on his knee and raised a hand to scratch absently at the stubble on his jaw. Behind him, a rustling sound heralded the Goa'uld's movement, and he and Daniel both turned to see Ba'al creeping towards them. 

Jack cocked an eyebrow.  "Feeling better, buttercup?"

"You will, of course, excuse me.  I have not been used to this sort of activity."  The Goa'uld wiped at his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

"That's obvious."  Daniel exchanged a look with the General before continuing.  "Plan?"

Jack turned back towards the sprawling home, taking in the situation—the distance from cover, the number of windows.

"I don't see any cameras."

"Doesn't mean there aren't any."  Scowling, he reached into his shirt pocket for his scope.  Sliding it open, he peered through it, and then lowered it with a growl, rubbing it on his knee.

"Broken?" Daniel pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"Dusty." He raised it again to his eye, fixing it on the main building.  "Desk job, remember?"

"We can get around in the woods.  People in the house couldn't see us if we were careful."

"I would not underestimate my brothers."  Ba'al spoke quietly behind them.  "They are both far more paranoid than am I. Yet they did not, as I remember, embrace the technology of the Tau'ri easily."

"Do you know what their defenses are?"

The Goa'uld shrugged.  "I've spent no time here.  I know that in the original compound, there were only guards.  Situated as it was in the country, the First One relied primarily on distance and man power.  Much as if he were on another world."

"So most likely no cameras."  Jack's mouth turned white around the edges, his eyes narrow and frank.

"Do we want to take the risk?"

"What other choice do we have, Daniel?  Wait until dark?  It's only—" Jack twisted his arm and checked his watch.  "Twelve hours until sundown."

The younger man's eyes widened, then narrowed, his lips tight. "So let's go. At least we can see if there are other buildings on the property—or a better way to get in."

But a commotion beyond the house had them all turning, trying to find a vantage point between the trees.  Around the far end of the structure came two figures, a woman—grimy and ragged, the other a tall and lanky man.  The man, a rifle strapped around his body, had the woman's arm bent up at a painful looking angle behind her back, and was shoving her towards the house. For her part, she was largely cooperating, although even across the distance it was obvious that the two were exchanging words.

Halfway along, the woman turned and yanked her arm free, yet didn't run. She stood tall, steadfast, staring at her captor, speaking vehemently.  His answer was just as terse, but it didn't seem to sway the captive. They stood there staring at each other for several charged minutes, their poses, their attitudes speaking nearly as loudly as their words.  After another pointed exchange, the man grabbed his detainee's arm again, thrusting it back behind her, whirling her back towards the house.  With a wicked-looking lurch, he propelled her forward, around the other side of the house, and up the porch.  Automatically, as if the door were wired, it gaped wide, and the two disappeared inside.

Jack lowered his scope, his fingers tight on the barrel. Behind him, Daniel shifted again, scooting while still crouched around to look the General in the face.

"Who is that, Jack?"

"I don't know the man."  He slapped the scope shut and re-stowed it into his breast pocket.

"And the woman?"

Jack wiped from forehead to chin with a hand that itched to make something hurt. Finally turning to catch Daniel's eyes, he forced a swallow past the anger in his throat.  "That was Miss Baldrich."


	17. Commencement

**_Taken_ **

****

****

**_Commencement_ **

 

 

She waited for the footsteps to fade on the stairs before stirring from where he'd unceremoniously planted her.

She counted to two hundred, slowly—remembering to add the hippopotami, just as he'd told her.  And then she waited for several breathless moments before jiggling the zip-tie on her wrists free and dropping it to the floor.  Even then she lingered, listening to the daunting silence around her some more, searching for any hint that someone lurked outside the door, or on the staircase beyond the room.

At least it wasn't dark this time.

After he'd ushered Doctor Lee out of the basement room, Whiny Dave had shoved Glinda in—perhaps with more vigor than he would have otherwise. But Phil stood just across the hallway glaring at her, his face haphazardly covered in bandages, and his finger ready on the trigger of his rifle.  Expedience and prudence both dictated that the sooner Glinda escaped _his_ field of vision, the better.  Especially since she'd been the one to narrow that field down to just the one unswollen eye.  So Dave had pretended to tighten the plastic fastener around her wrists and then forced her to a seated position on the cot within the cell. Whispering his instructions, he'd turned and exited.  The door had clicked shut behind him, and he'd fiddled loudly with the knob on the outside of the door, ostensibly going through the motions of locking it.

Hopefully, his efforts at subterfuge would pay off.

She'd spent part of her counting allotment studying the room around her. Cot, currently rumpled and unmade. Chair—tilted at an odd angle—it appeared to be broken.  A small desk on which sat a singularly ugly lamp.  Over her head dangled a square glass lighting fixture in which three of the four bulbs were burned out.  No window, no phone, no dresser—no other comforts or amenities.  And the place smelled gamily of what she gradually came to identify as 'Eau de Captive Scientist'. 

Wrinkling her nose, Glinda had folded her hands in her lap and worked her way through the first hundred and started on the second.  She'd finished her final 'hippopotamus' while staring at what looked to be a dead cockroach directly below the fixture's single working lamp.

Some things were better in the dark, she decided.

She stood and was grateful no one else loomed near to see how wobbly her limbs were. Taking a shuffling step forwards, Glinda braced herself on the desk until her legs controlled themselves, and then she drew herself upright again.  With a thoughtful glare at the closed door to her right, she girded her loins and moved towards it, hoping that her words to David had truly struck the right nerve.

Guilt. It was a classic strategy, really. She'd reached back into her nearly seven decades of life and pulled forth each and every method of evoking shame and remorse that she'd ever learned.  And when the Doctor Lee clone had ordered Dave to escort her back to the house in exchange for the real Doctor Lee, she'd used the opportunity to further her cause.

_"Are you really going to kill an old lady?"_

_"How could a nice young man like you want to hurt a pregnant woman?"_

_"Surely you know this is wrong?  What if I were your grandmother?"_

_"Are you the kind of young man who could kill a grandma and an innocent baby?"_

Begging, cajoling, and pleading would have come up next in her repertoire—but thankfully, her powers to inflict a sense of conscience in the youth had been sufficient for the day.  With Phil looking on from the hallway, Whiny Dave had encircled her wrists with the plastic ties and only pretended to yank them securely. Low, quick, his voice terse, he'd told her to count to two hundred—adding the bit about the African water mammals as if it were the most important part of the plan.  She'd assumed he meant for her to make her escape once the house was empty.  He'd figured that counting two hundred of the beasts would do it.

Glinda had been only too glad to put his theory to the test.

She took two more steps and leaned close to the door. Fitting her ear to it, she listened, holding her breath, for any hint of life beyond.  Her fingers dropped to the knob, and after a prolonged bout of silence, she tightened her fingertips and twisted—slowly, quietly, painstakingly—until the knob reached its limit and released its internal latch with a tiny _click_.

She reminded herself to breathe, inhaling through her nose and exhaling slowly through her mouth.  Holding the knob turned far to the right, she pulled lightly at the door, peeking around it into the void of the hall beyond. 

Empty. Both other doors gaped wide. The bathroom light had been left on. In its arc of radiating glow, she could see the lamp with which she'd cudgeled Phil earlier lying on its side on the floor of the still-darkened larger room directly across the hall. She padded out of the smaller cell, her bare feet making nary a sound in the dead of the corridor. Sidling up to the wall next to the bathroom, she glided along it to the corner, then peeked over her left shoulder, scanning the staircase with now more knowledgeable eyes.  Up at the top landing, the single panel door stood closed, daylight filtering in around the ill-fitting jamb. 

Glinda waited, willing her heart to beat normally, counting hippopotami again—an earlier attempt at summoning Paul Newman had not gone well—and the counting seemed to help give her something on which to focus. The gravity of the current situation was not lost on the secretary.  Before, she'd had the Colonel to lean on.  Her example to follow, her experience to learn from.  Last night, Colonel Carter had been there to lead the way. This time—Glinda had no one but herself on whom to depend.

Furthermore, this time, the Colonel relied on Glinda. 

She'd strategized while counting, staring up at the desiccated roach in the Cold-War Era light.  The steps to her plan had become a mantra.  Escape the house. Follow the driveway in the cover of the woods.  Walk along the road until she found help.  Come back and save the day.

If she could have, she would have added bullet points.

She glanced down at her tattered clothing, her filthy bare feet. Climbing off the quad, the back slit of her skirt had ripped further upward, and she suspected rather equitably that she was mooning all and sundry whenever she moved.  And because she was a woman of certain age, she couldn't help but flinch at the thought.  Even if she did get to the road and manage to flag down a car, who would want to aid in the rescue of a grimy old lady showing an indecent amount of cheek?

But then, what was it that General Bodine had always said?

_No use borrowing trouble._

Her previous boss' face flashed into her head—unwanted, but persistent. Square headed, neat as a pin, even his wrinkles had seemed to march in perfect lines.  Never flustered, never perturbed, he'd calmly handled difficulties with a perfect alacrity that had meshed well with Glinda's natural affinity for organization and order. 

They had worked so well together that Glinda had planned on retiring at the same time as he.  Seventeen years, she'd been his administrative assistant.  And never once whilst in his employ had she been kidnapped by _anyone_ , let alone been taken from a mall, gullet pleasantly filled with roughage, by a gaggle of egotistically maniacal clones.

She'd held on at the Pentagon, entering the Secretarial Pool for a few mere months in order to boost her pension payouts.  Just a few months' delay had raised the monthly sum she'd receive upon retirement considerably.

Greed. Greed had brought her to this.

No, she peeped down again at her muddy toes with a self-effacing smile. _Pragmatism_ had brought her to this.  And then she'd fallen for the O'Neills—both of them.  All _three_ of them, should truth be told.  Pragmatism and a soft heart.  And then she'd gone to the mall to buy herself a new Olfa.

Pragmatism, a soft heart, and a rotary cutter.

But whatever course of events had left her at the foot of these stairs, self pity would never take her up them.

All lay tranquil around her, and she spurred herself up the first few steps. Stopping, she listened to the house again.  Quiet. Silence.  Stagnance.  She climbed four more, and then another eight, and then paused at the landing. Again, her ear touched wood, and she strained through the quiet to hear any hint of movement or trouble.

Nothing unusual—the hum of the refrigerator—but she recalled that from the first time she'd made this particular trek.  Her fingertips skimmed the knob, and she twisted cautiously, then pushed the door open a sliver, peering around the now-bright scene.

The pineapple still reigned supreme in the bowl on the island. She could see past it to the sink, and the knife block on the counter.  The Roman shades had all been lowered over the large windows, but enough light filtered in that she could still see most of the room.  Cracking the door open further, she slid through, then paused next to the fridge as she turned her attention towards the doorway in the cabinets to the right that led into the depths of the house.

The linoleum was memorably cool on her bare feet, and, subduing the fear that tightened her gut, she paced along the smooth flooring towards the archway.  Beyond the opening, the living area sat silent, bathed in a yellowish shadow that came from sunlight hitting the gold curtains on the large window dominating the furthest wall. Furniture—forgettable cheap couches and chairs—dotted a threadbare carpet.  She craned her head around the doorjamb and took in another hallway exiting the room to her right, a thin door next to the hallway that looked like a coat closet, and the front door to the house, nestled in the wall adjacent to the picture window.

Normal. She could practically see the family that had lived here before—surely a far cry from the beings that now inhabited this residence.  With a notion to make certain she was alone, she tiptoed to the hallway, and stood at the corner there for several moments, listening—hearing nothing.  A quick look down the length of the passageway assured her she'd been right.  The house was vacant but for her.

Satisfied, Glinda turned back towards the kitchen.  Her footfalls quiet on the carpeting, she trod back around the random couches and chairs and crossed the metal threshold into the brighter expanse of the kitchen. Passing the sink, she paused, and then felt herself deflate a smidgen.  She took a hesitant step backwards.

She'd made this mistake before.  Contemplating escape without preparing to protect herself.  Taking a deep breath, the secretary turned her entire body towards the counter and the knife block that seemed to dominate it.

A few knives were missing—she recognized the empty slot at the top where the Colonel had removed the largest blade.  Glinda's own fingers reached up and stretched towards the congregated cutlery, the tips teasing the back of a large black-handled cleaver.

Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of color caught her notice, however, and she turned her head to look into the depths of the deep kitchen sink.

Three items sat at the bottom—piled slapdash, one on top of another. Stainless steel—long handled—wicked blade—black grip—a flash of incongruent yellow.  Instantly recognized, she'd last seen that yellow blur still quivering in the neck of the Goa'uld, the blood pulsing around it. What little left in her stomach rose anew to settle in the back of her throat.

They'd been cleaned.  Rinsed of dirt and whatever other grunge they must have accumulated the night before. With a tremendous effort, she reached into the sink and withdrew the meat tenderizer—its weight felt familiar in her grip.  Transferring it to her left hand, she extended her hand again and curled her fingers around the knife's handle.

The rotary cutter, she left there.  Even pristine, it seemed too indecent to be constructive.  

With a quick look behind her, she headed towards the side door, but a glimpse of a shadow on the patio stopped her cold.  She heard a footfall on the boards of the decking—and then another. Saw the crouched figure of a man dart from one side of the patio to the other, and heard a hint of a bump as his back landed up against the wall to the side of the door.

Her eyes flew to the knob on the door, to the little lock in the center. How the ridge in the center ran from side to side rather than up to down.  Unlocked.  Only this time not through carelessness, but to facilitate her escape.

A shadow moved to the side of the door, and Glinda caught a glimpse of pants through the glass not covered by curtain.  The knob turned, and she frantically skittered to the side, whacking her hip on the island before managing to slide back around the basement door and stop short on the landing.  With the last three fingers on her knife hand, she grasped the knob, pulling the door shut behind her.

The outside door swung open—through the thin wood paneling of the door she could hear the jaunty curtain slap against the glass panes. More footsteps—furtive—then deliberate. These treads were not made in haste or in panic.  They traversed the length of the kitchen, then stopped, and Glinda heard a shuffle as someone turned. A floorboard creaked underneath the linoleum, and then all sound was obscured within the sudden clamor of cubes falling into the ice tray in the freezer.

With a look into the depths of the basement, Glinda found herself already taking the first descending step, her weapons ready in her hands.

She hustled down the remaining steps and flew back into her original cell, past the bloodstain on the floor, past the lamp, past the remnants of her unmentionables—shredded hose and stained and wadded half-slip. Had she only donned them a little more than twenty four hours before?  How much had changed since then. 

How much _she_ had changed since then!

Despite the light from the bathroom, the sitting area was dark. Flattening her back against the wall again, she waited.  With a gentle grate of wood on wood, the door to the basement opened, and Glinda caught her breath at the distinctive sound of a rifle being butted up against a shoulder, the trigger being jostled.  She heard a whisper, a sound of assent, and then feet—light on the stairs—their strides even and calm. She shoved herself deeper into the room, until her retreat was halted by the multi-colored lamp in the corner.

In her left hand, the meat tenderizer felt heavy, the knife in her right hand seemed inelegant and graceless.  Her gaze sought, and found, the weaponized lamp on the floor, and wondered in a moment of panic if she could attain it before the interloper could reach her. But then the large shadow loomed in the still-open doorway of the sitting area, and Glinda could actually see shoes—brown boots—and the muzzle of a shotgun.

She struggled not to cry out—biting her lips closed so tightly that she was sure she tasted blood.  Her hand firmed around the handle of the knife, and she shrank back further into the darkness, hoping that the man would take a cavalier look and then retreat. But the figure scanned the room at the doorway, the movements of his body mirrored by the sweeping span of the shotgun's barrel.  Taking note of her new threat, Glinda watched intently—hoping to find a moment to strike—a point of weakness.

She strained in the darkness to watch as he entered the room, her eyes flying wide as he turned the weapon directly at her.  Raising her hands, she prepared herself—wondering inanely if it was blasphemous to pray to the Almighty for the ability to hurt someone. Her shoulder hit one of the hanging lamps just as the man turned in her direction, and the sharp sound of his rapid chambering of a round had her swallowing a tiny gasp.

"I know you're there."  He took a step further inward.  "If you were one of them, you'd have fired by now.  So why don't you just come on out?  It'll be a lot less messy that way."

And Glinda realized that her frantic prayer had been answered in a completely different way.

That voice.  Blessedly familiar—wonderfully so. A flood of relief flowed through her—and she did gasp, then, her entire body involved in a sound that was truly more a sob than anything else.  Vast relief overwhelmed her, and she sagged against the wall, the weapons she held sliding from her grip to land benignly on the floor.

She breathed deeply once—twice—just to make certain she still could, before tentatively venturing an answer.  "Sir?"

The shotgun dropped slightly from the horizontal, and his voice came again, stronger, into the darkness. 

"Pinky?"

\----OOOOOOO----

 

"So there are two Ba'al clones in the barn."

"Yes, but only one of them resembles yours."

Glinda glared for the umpteenth time at the General's companion. After having been introduced to this latest version of the alien, she found her already tenuous patience for the species waning.  She'd been civil, but not friendly, notwithstanding his current whim of cooperation. And his regard for her proved equally unremarkable.  He had paid her no attention since they'd gathered in the sitting area, preferring to pick stray leaves and bits of dirt from his overly expensive clothing.

"And how many guards?"

"Five." She answered automatically—her exhaustion evident in her lack of elegance in verbosity.  "Six if Phil is with them.  There might be more—those are the only ones of whom I have firsthand knowledge."

"And Phil is the one with—"

They'd already discussed this.  Glinda sighed, her eyes drifting closed with the effort.  "Bandages.  Across his nose."

"And you're responsible for said bandages?"

"I hit him with a lamp."  Glinda nodded towards the object, lying on the opposite side of the room. "That one."

The General half smiled, his eyebrow quirking upward. "Good girl."

"Your wife said much the same thing."

"Yes. Well."  The General didn't elaborate.  His mouth thinned, and he adjusted his hold on the shotgun in his hand. "And they have a sarcohpagus?"

"And the other device."  She nodded, returning her attention to her boss.  "But Colonel Carter claims that she won't be able to get it to work. She said someone had futzed with the crystals."

"Futzed with them?"  Doctor Jackson asked this, his back against the jamb.  He'd stationed himself at the doorway, his handgun held in such a way that Glinda knew that he could wield it proficiently.  "Sounds like she's channeling you, Jack."

"It happens, Daniel.  You know that."

"What I find surprising is your ongoing ability to tell the truth, Doctor Jackson."  Ba'al glanced at the General's friend, one side of his mouth smirking upward. "What with your wife being who—and _what_ —she is."

"Shut up, Ba'al."  O'Neill's answer seemed both automatic and tired.  His face hadn't changed as he'd spoken—merely continued studying Glinda as if he could ferret more information out of her than she knew.

"Sir, I don't know very much more than that.  There is the real Doctor Lee, and then his clone, who has a Ba'al clone inside him, and then the other Ba'al, and then Carl, Barry, Jenkins, David, and Phil.  And Growly."

"Growly?"

"I still don't know his given name.  He has a rough, crude voice.  Hence—Growly." Glinda folded her hands in her lap and then unfolded them, splaying her fingers against her bedraggled skirt. "And David could be considered to be on our side.  He did, after all, facilitate my escape."

"He left you to your own devices."  This from the Goa'uld, his tone little more than a sneer. "I would hardly call that an escape.

"My devices have served me quiet well during this kerfuffle." Glinda drew herself up—injecting steel into her spine.  "I, at least, have done my best to aid the Colonel in whatever way I could. You appear to be good for nothing better than following and whining."

Daniel's quiet snort raised her spirits considerably.  "Wow, Ba'al, you just got owned."

"People." The General turned towards Daniel, his eyes wide.  "Can we keep on topic, here?"

"Sir, we do need to hurry.  Your wife is attempting to fix the machine, but the clones are losing patience. I suspected that she might be trying to stall at first, but now I truly do think that she doesn't know how to repair the device."

"Have they hurt her?"

Glinda faltered, then nodded.  Honesty had always served her well, but she knew this particular information would be difficult for the General to hear.  She took a cleansing breath under the guise of thinking. "She's bruised. They used the zat on us in the mall, and then interrupted the operation of some sort of internal sensor."

"The personal beacon."  Daniel watched his friend, his face carefully bland.  "We tried to locate the signal when you first went missing."

"They didn't cut her?"

"No—I believe they disabled it remotely, somehow."

The General processed this, then raised a brow at her. "Go on."

After a brief pause, Glinda continued.  "And then she was wounded in a firefight."

"She's been shot?"

"Grazed." Glinda's response was immediate. "On her leg. We bandaged it up and she doesn't appear to be in too much pain.  And then she gave herself up in hopes that I could get away, but one of the goon squad started threatening her, and so I had to utilize the alien weapon on him."

"You zatted one of them?"

"Jenkins." Glinda met his gaze straight on. "It was Jenkins. He hit her—bruised her face."

O'Neill's lips had turned impossibly thin, his jaw distended. And a hardness had invaded his normally warm eyes—as if he'd gone cold inside.  As if something had turned to steel.

"She's tough, sir."  She forced the words out—more for her own benefit than for his, since she knew without doubt that nothing short of finishing this whole drama would make him feel any better at all.  "She's an amazing, amazing woman.  I am in awe of her."

"She is." The General unclenched his fingers from around his weapon, reseating it in his grip.  He looked at her while at the same time looking through her, and then breathed once before answering.  "And I always was, too.  You don't get used to it."

Glinda schooled her voice, her features intentionally calm. "And she needs us now."

"I know."

Daniel moved away from his post at the doorway, nearing where the General stood in the center of the room.  He pushed his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose—more a habit than anything else, Glinda had deduced—something to busy himself with while deciding his next action.  Pursing his lips, he placed himself close to his friend.  "Jack—what's the plan?"

"We're going to get her back."

"Just like that?"

"You've got a better idea?"

"Not really."  Daniel shrugged. "And I guess we've done with less over the years."

"I'll expound upon it."  He raised the shotgun in his arms and chambered a round with a sharp, efficient motion of his hand, the mechanism's tight _schick_ loud in the close environs of the basement room. "How's that?"

Daniel tilted his head to one side with a random shrug. "Okay then."

And the General glanced at his three companions in turn before reaching behind him and withdrawing his Beretta.  Stowing his shotgun under his arm, he prepared the handgun for use and returned it to the holster at the small of his back.  With a fierce look at Glinda, he lowered his chin in question. "Are you up for this? Because you can stay here if you want."

"No—I'll go."  The secretary stood, resisting the urge to smooth down her skirt.  Leaning over, she grasped the handle of the meat tenderizer that had ended up on the couch next to her.  She felt like hammer-wielding Thor, albeit without the beard and horned helmet.  "I need to."

"Then let's go."  He jerked his head at Ba'al, who unfolded his lanky body from the couch and aimed himself towards the door.  Daniel followed the Goa'uld, and the General waited as Glinda caught up.

She passed him, and then hesitated within the door frame. He'd questioned her thoroughly, about everything except one topic.  Glinda knew why he'd omitted it—people normally hated asking the question to which they feared the answer.

Bracing herself, she captured his eye, his attention.

As if he'd anticipated this, he frowned.  "What?"

"Sir, I just wanted to say—" Her voice trailed off, and she bit her lip, watching him as he darted a look up the stairs at Daniel, and then fixed his focus on a non-point somewhere far away.  "General—I—"

But his jaw began to work again, his brows low over his hard eyes.

"Jack."

Instantly, he pulled himself back, his lids flickering as he turned his gaze to hers. "What?"

"She felt the baby move.  After she was zatted.  In the woods—after the bullet grazed her."  Glinda paused, gulping in a breath.  "She was so happy about that, even with everything else.  And if the baby survived all that, well, he's probably strong enough to survive all of this.  I just thought you should know."

He stood still, only the subtle movement of his temple evidence that he wasn't stone. She waited for a beat, then one more, before finally turning to follow Daniel and Ba'al up to where they stood at the landing.

Without warning, the General captured her arm and pulled her back to himself, pressing her to his side, his wide palm at her nape, her cheek against his shoulder. One armed, the embrace lasted no longer than a second or two, and then Glinda found herself released unceremoniously, his hand holding her steady as she took a hurried, clumsy step backwards.

But his face—good heavens. 

Relief. Coursing through him like the muddy waters of the Colorado.

And even though he hadn't smiled, hadn't sighed, hadn't so much as moved, she could tell.  With a brusque nod, she turned back towards the stairs.

"Pinky."

She paused on the bottom step, swiveling a quarter turn back towards the General. "Yes, sir?"

And his body had relaxed, somehow, his knuckles no longer as white on the barrel of his shotgun.  He nodded almost imperceptibly, his movements spare and economical, his voice equally so.

"Thank you."


	18. Flares

**_Taken_ **

****

****

**_Flares_ **

 

 

Glinda sank to a crouch, using a hand against the siding of the barn for balance. Her fingers gripped the metal handle of her weapon with a determination that had, at one point during the run across the lawn, seemed beyond her.  She was exhausted—beyond tired.  Beyond thinking of anything further than finding a place to rest for a few moments.

They'd come around the back of the house, pausing as the General had surveyed the scene with his nifty little scope, and then made a beeline for the barn. Ending up on the same side as had the Colonel and she the night before, they proceeded to stick close to the wall on their way to the back entrance.  The eaves hid them as they made their way around to the far outer corner.

The General, holding his shotgun easily in one hand, motioned for her to stay put.  Grateful to comply, Glinda lowered herself to the ground, concentrating on catching her breath as she watched Daniel and General O'Neill move smoothly around the corner, weapons at the ready.

"Are you prepared to do battle once we are inside?" Ba'al paused next to her, his face a mottled sheen with the combination of exertion and the growing morning heat.

"I've been doing battle for twenty-four hours, now." Glinda looked up at him, her fingers tightening on the meat tenderizer.  "I believe that shows that I will do what is necessary."

The Goa'uld studied her for several breaths.  Glinda tried to ignore him, refusing to give him any hint as to her true state.  She knew it was considered prideful to disguise need or emotion, but she just could not imagine giving this parasite the power of knowing how she was truly faring through this mess.

But his dark eyes intruded anyway, and she cringed inside. Just knowing that penetrating gaze remained on her, so similar to the stares of the men in the barn—she couldn't control the shudder that rippled through her any more than she could dictate the movements of the Earth or Moon.

So, she closed her eyes to the brightness of the sun that managed to make its way through the low hanging eaves of the outbuilding, and concentrated on preserving her strength.  And on instilling herself with the gumption necessary to accomplish the mission at hand.

Whatever else happened, whatever else she had to do, she would see the Colonel safe.  She would know for a fact that Sam's unborn child would have a chance at life.  If that wasn't fulfilling the measure of her creation, she didn't know what was.  Paving the way for new lives, fresh hopes.

"I must admit that you have surprised me, Miss Baldrich."

Perhaps it was because she'd been so steeped in thought that she answered automatically—without filtering through possible responses first. "Oh?  Dare I inquire as to how?"

"I had assumed that the elderly of the Tau'ri would be weak and worthless."  His handsome face seemed almost pleasant, even as those unnervingly clear eyes assessed her. "But you have shown an amazing degree of capability and courage."

Glinda frowned at the Goa'uld.  "Why would you think me to be weak?"

"Age. With age comes infirmity." He raised a shoulder slightly, his white shirt considerably dirtier in the daylight.   "My kind have had to counteract the ravages time has taken in our hosts for thousands of years."

She squinted up at him.  "Haven't your kind also caused many of those ravages?"

Ba'al's teeth flashed in something akin to a smile.  "Indeed, they have.  But you are forgetting that we have also prolonged the lives of countless humans. With our healing abilities, we can lengthen the natural years and provide an extension of youth."

"Through the technology in the sarcophagus."

He had the grace to look just the merest bit sheepish. "Still, however, the host body survives to live for thousands of years."

He raised a hand to stroke at his facial hair, and Glinda was struck at how often in the past half an hour she had seen him attending to his appearance. The alien seemed to be inordinately concerned with his physical form.  She refused to give herself another once-over, knowing that she would have self-consciously attempted some sort of restorative ablutions.  But with the Colonel's whereabouts and condition unknown, and with the real Doctor Lee in the fray, it hardly seemed to be the time for vanity.

And so, she sat, silent, at the wall, watching him preen, feeling absolutely certain that she was not the only person to have done so.

Still, she was a bit taken aback when he turned to her again, a questioning gleam in his dark eyes.  "Would you not like to host a god?  Would you not like to live forever?"

His words struck Glinda to her core, and for the smallest of breaths, she held the idea close.  She'd never considered the thought—never once in all her days contemplated a life that did not come to a natural conclusion.  Whatever else she'd employed to fill her time, it had not been thoughts of immortality.

Human physical existence wasn't supposed to last forever. A natural order had been ordained long before Glinda made her appearance into the world; an order in which people—creatures—beings—were born, lived life to their approximation of the fullest, and then gracefully accepted the end when it came.  She fully believed that something lived on—that the light each person called their own continued progressing even after the body had disintegrated.

She'd found herself able to contemplate that time more, lately—and whether that insight fell due to her own aging reflection in the mirror, or to the current events in which she found herself embroiled, it still made her more accepting of death not just as an end to one thing, but as a beginning of another.

She believed in that beginning.  It had sustained her during the dark, fetid days after her mother's loss, and again as she'd prepared to bury her father.  To suppose that it all ended pointlessly would also force the belief that none of it had any purpose at all.  That life itself befell humanity as an amazing fluke. 

In which case nothing had any lasting significance.

She rejected that notion outright.  Had long ago ceded herself to a power greater than herself. And she'd found within herself a little of that greatness during this last day.  Had discovered that she couldn't just forfeit herself to the actions of others, while concurrently uncovering the rather jarring knowledge that she would gladly die—and kill—for certain causes.

Because Glinda Baldrich was more than physical life.  She'd never really thought of exactly what it was that made her _her_.  But it had nothing to do with her body.  And giving that body immortality would do no good unless the essence of Glinda inhabited it.  Her soul. Her spirit.  Her character.

With a piercing look at the Goa'uld, she felt her shoulders square. "Immortality achieves nothing unless you are engaged in a good cause.  And unless your spirit dictates your own destiny.  The way your kind subjugates the human spirit in order to meet its own ends is shameful."

"Ah. But that is where you are mistaken about me." Ba'al tilted a look back down at her.  "I have never taken a host.  This body has never possessed a human consciousness. I have enslaved no one."

"Then perhaps you should stop considering yourself as host and captor, and instead just concentrate your efforts on becoming human."

Despite the situation, or perhaps because of them, his expression made her grin. Such arrogance, to be disgusted at the thought of resigning oneself to a mere human existence. Such misplaced superiority.

With what appeared to be tremendous effort, he forced his expression back to a vacant semblance of amusement.  "Regardless, this body is flawed.  I need to utilize the sarcophagus to make repairs."

"And so that's why you're here.  Not to do good, but to benefit from other people's actions."

He opened his mouth to answer, but a movement at the edge of the building halted their conversation.  The General rounded the corner, his weapon glinting deadly in the sun. His long strides drew him close—jostling roughly past the Goa'uld as he neared her.  He crouched next to her with a grimace.

"It's locked."

"The small door?"

"The whole damned place."  His jaw worked once, twice, before he tilted his head back towards where Daniel stood, gun in hand, at the corner.  "I could blow the locks, but that would ruin the element of surprise. And that's all we've got. Is there any other entrance into this place?"

Glinda frowned, drawing forth her memories to rifle through—to consider. The lab appeared in her mind's eye, the surrounding wall of shelving and cabinetry, the skylights, the doors—

"Stalls."

"I'm not stalling.  I'm asking—"

She interrupted him without ceremony.  "I know, sir.  What I'm saying is that on the other side of this building there are rooms formerly used for housing horses.  The cloning tank was in what appeared to be a wide stall—perhaps one that had been a broodmare foaling area. There would be doors on the outside of the stall that would lead out into an enclosure."

The General immediately reached for her hand, and she found herself hauled upright and dragged along in his wake as he strode purposefully towards the back of the building.  He peeped around the corner first, and then motioned for her to follow as he sidled around the bend and moved quietly past first the single door, and then the double doors of the building, towards where Daniel stood at the far end.

Glinda padded behind O'Neill, her senses keen, her movements infused with caution.  That they passed in full view of the corral where the firefight had taken place the night before didn't accomplish anything towards easing her nerves. She could still see the men on the ground, and worse, the ones who had headed toward the opposite end of the corral, shooting at her and the Colonel.

Forcing her attention from the scene, she caught up with the General and his friend, stopping just behind them at the corner of the building.

A glance to the right convinced O'Neill that nobody lay beyond, and he rounded to that side of the barn, moving until he reached a set of stacked doors. They were wide—and painted the same red as the rest of the building.  Both doors had identical heavy iron hinges, and even heavier iron latches through which were threaded twin shiny steel padlocks.

"Crap." The General fingered the lock on the bottom door, pulling it up and glaring at its underside. With a growled sigh, he pulled a multi-tool out of his pocket and turned it, looking for a specific component.

"Do you know how to pick locks, too?"  She spoke without thinking, then immediately bit her lips together, feeling foolish. 

But the General seemed unfazed.  Finding the tool he wanted, he thumbed it out and held it up. "Nope.  Just getting handy in my old age."

He fitted the Phillips blade into the screws holding the latches to the wall adjoining the door, and within a few moments, had them loosened enough that he could pull them out the rest of the way.  Moving towards the wall, he waved the Glinda and Ba'al to the side, and then, signaling in some seemingly covert way, guided Daniel to stand directly at his back, creating a shadow on the door frame. His face tight, he used the latch as a handle, pulling the lower door open just far enough to peer in.

Glinda struggled not to hold her breath, trying only somewhat successfully to control the palpitations of her heart.  Tense, she watched as the General scanned the interior of the room through the tiny sliver of an opening, and then reclosed it to look over his shoulder at Daniel.

"It's empty.  Except for the tank."

Daniel looked down at Glinda.  "And there wasn't anything else in that particular room?"

She shook her head.  "Not that I recall. Unless they've put something else in there."

"No." O'Neill shook his head once. "So we use it for cover. I go first.  Pinky, you're next.  Then you."  He glared at the Goa'uld.

"And I'll bring up the rear."  Daniel nodded.  "Glinda, Ba'al. You stay to the rear of the tank. I'll close the door, and go to the right. Jack, you take the left."

"And what then?  I hide like a peasant while the two of you save the day?"

Rolling his eyes at the Goa'uld, Daniel sighed quietly.  "No, you stay out of the way while Jack and I liberate your sarcophagus."

"I should be armed."

"Uh—" the General's eyes flared wide before narrowing. With a curt shake of his head, he said only, "No."

"Why does the old woman merit a weapon and not I?  I have commanded great armies in battle.  I have defeated even the likes of you in war. I would be useful in there."

"Ba'al."

"General O'Neill.  You are being singularly stupid in this matter.  Have not I demonstrated some sort of allegiance to you in this endeavor?"

The Goa'uld stood, crossing his arms across his chest with an indolence that grated on Glinda's nerves.  Completely without thinking, she lashed out, bringing her meat tenderizer down on his big toe, encased as it was in his expensive Italian shoes. He hissed in a breath, jerking away from her.  "What was that for?"

"Perhaps he would give you a gun if you learned to shut up and follow orders." Glinda was gratified that her voice issued forth as clearly as it did, even speaking as quietly as she had. "And perhaps you should figure out where the prepositions belong in your sentences."

The General grinned at that, more to himself than anything else, then reached behind him to pull his Beretta out of the holster at the small of his back.  Balancing his shotgun on his thigh, he cocked the handgun, glancing up at Glinda as the slide clicked home. 

Hesitating, he stared at the weapon and then up at the Goa'uld. His jaw tight, he extended his hand, holding the weapon out towards the alien.

The Goa'uld stared at it for another breath, then reached out and took it, curling his hand around the grip, fitting his finger to the trigger.

O'Neill tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrow.  With a meaningful glare, he nodded towards the weapon in the alien's hand.  "I'm trusting you."

And the Goa'uld lifted a brow, but this time it wasn't in condescension, it was in gratitude.  With none of his previous cockiness, he met the General's eyes clearly.  "I know."

Daniel grunted quietly behind them.  "Are you sure, Jack?"

"Yeah." The General scowled. "It doesn't make sense to take him in unarmed.  And he's right—it _would_ be a waste of a body on our side."

"Sir?"

"Yes, Pinky?"

"If he gets out of line, I'll conk him on the head with my meat tenderizer."  Glinda brandished it gamely.  "I seem to be somewhat talented in that capacity."

O'Neill looked back at the stall door, then placed his hand on the latch again, before returning his attention to his secretary.  His expression caught hers with an odd conglomeration of emotion—humor, amazingly enough, and something else.  It took Glinda a moment to place it.

As he tightened his hand on the latch, she ducked her head—trying not to smile, trying not to recognize the odd surge of terrified excitement that seemed to be rising up within her.  She raised her mallet, and then her face, and watched as he smiled at her again—a crooked, endearing grin. 

"Remind me to give you a raise."

She nodded.  "The Colonel told me that she would suggest it, too."

And he turned his head to Daniel, and then to Ba'al, and spoke, his voice low. "Then let's go get her back."

 

\---OOOOOOO----

"I'm telling you—it won't work."

"You will make it work, Colonel."

Sam let out a sound that could only be described as a growl. Something banged on a desk, and smaller items—pencils?  A ruler?—bounced on the surface in response.  Another voice spoke low—too indistinct to be heard from far away, and Sam's voice again shone through the lab.  "No, Bill. I've already tried that."

"Then try it again."  This speaker, Glinda recognized.  His twin stood not too far away from the secretary's vantage point behind the tank.

The interior of the converted stall was cool and dark, but conspicuously _not_ quiet. They'd emerged into an argument of some sort between Sam and the Ba'al clone, their voices immediately recognizable in the larger area of the laboratory. 

In her prescribed spot behind the vat, Glinda turned and stole a look into the room, but couldn't see much beyond the annoyingly familiar steel shelves and cabinets. 

They'd gotten in undetected—a minor miracle when one considered that a guard stood just on the other side of the shelving from the tank room. But he hadn't turned, hadn't so much as cocked an ear, even when the Goa'uld had knocked his knee on the edge of the glass case.

The General moved forward, closer to the lab, crouching low, his shotgun held in both hands.  Daniel had come in behind them, pulling the door quietly closed behind him. He had glided past Glinda and the tank, easily, in a manner obviously well practiced, both hands steady on his Glock.  He turned at the inner door, pressing his back flush with the paneling, his body hidden in the shadows. Over his right shoulder, he scoped the interior of the lab, then flashed a series of concise hand signals at the General, who nodded back.

Ba'al rose and crossed to where Daniel stood, and Glinda scooted around the tank on the far side—Daniel's side—exactly where the Colonel had hidden so many hours earlier from the Doctor Lee clone.

Again, Sam's voice broke the odd quiet.  "I've already told you.  The math is wrong."

"This is not about mathematics, Colonel, this is about the crystals."

"Damn it, Ba'al.  Listen to me."

Footsteps, and then a slap, followed by a sound that could only be termed a sob. Glinda immediately peeked at the General, then cringed, almost wishing she hadn't.

He'd transformed—morphed into a man she'd never met before. She'd never seen him so forbidding—never seen him so cold.  His expression had lost any semblance of his normal gregarious self and had turned distant—dangerous. So _this_ was the man she'd read about in those mission reports. This was the man who had led his team to take down empires.

"What do you have to say, now?"

Glinda heard a shuffle—bare feet searching for purchase on the smooth wooden floor?—and then a groan.  Deep breathing, and a creaking sound—like weight being forced on a table top. She could see it in her head, that which she couldn't see from where she crouched—see the Colonel struggle to her feet, unaided, too proud to be laid low.

"So, Colonel?  Have you seen that no rescue comes for you?  Have you seen that stalling will not help you?"

"I'm not stalling."

"You're lying."

To this, Sam had no answer.  Glinda heard another impact—but no accompanying sound of anyone falling. And then a newer voice—less familiar. One she'd heard only briefly, and only just before Whiny Dave had faked securing her hands. 

"Sir, Ba'al.  She's right. It's not going to work. The coding on the crystals has been altered—and neither of us has a clue as to the new code."

"So, decipher it."  The clone's voice was degrading—becoming more loose, somehow, less elegant.

"We can't.  That's what I've been trying to say."

Glinda jumped as a violent screech entered the fray.  Heavy footsteps clodded across the floor, and she could see the top of the Bill clone's head bob across the inner sanctum of the lab. "Worthless! They are useless! Do it!  Do it now!"

"They are not ready for it, brother."

"I cannot wait any longer.  This host is destabilizing.  I can feel the body degrade."  He fought for breath, his efforts harsh, and crude.  "Do it."

"There is no guarantee that it will give us the results we seek."

"Do it!"  More footsteps sounded in the lab, plodding, graceless.  And then a shifting of metal on metal, and the faint squeak of hinges.

"No—please." Sam again, her tone losing strength. "Let me try again."

"The moment has passed for your pleading.  We have run out of patience."  The Bill clone coughed, then made a hawking sound and spat. "And you have run out of time."

Glinda heard an oddly familiar noise.  If she didn't know better, she would think that someone had opened a container of pickles.  Metal on glass, a jar's threaded top being navigated by a lid.  And then a weak squeal—chilling, almost infantile.

"Ba'al—don't let him do this.  Please." Trembling, now, slightly breathless, the Colonel sounded nearly defeated.  "I'm begging you." 

"I did warn you to cooperate."  He snapped, and more footsteps sounded on the wood flooring. "I tried it your way."

The guard directly in front of the tank room moved forward, and the General took the opportunity to move out of the tank room and into the corridor created by the stainless steel shelving units.  Daniel quickly stepped over the threshold and out, as well, moving in the opposite direction.  Beretta held low, Ba'al followed Daniel into the corridor, disappearing from Glinda's view.

The weird, disturbing screeching strengthened, and the secretary rose and repositioned herself near the doorway to the tank room. Through the shelving, now, the scene became clear, and Glinda forced herself not to cry out—not to scream as the Colonel was overtaken by the guards and shoved into position at the edge of a desk.

Her face was turned towards Glinda.  Dirty, bedraggled, and pale, her lip had been split wide, and a line of blood trailed its way down her chin.  Her bruised cheek was livid, now, and a smudge of blood had dried up high, near her temple. Two men held her arms firmly behind her back, wedging her legs between their own and the front of the desk. The guard who had been nearest the tank room had set his weapon down and shoved himself up behind her, his hand fisted in her hair.  With a rough jerk, he pulled her head to one side and then thrust her forward, slamming the side of her face into the cabinet's facade.

"Don't worry, Colonel Carter."  The Doctor Lee clone emerged from where he'd been behind some opened cabinet doors. "Your wounds will soon be healed."  Holding his hand up, he studied the creature squirming in his grip.

Blue eyes wide, she watched him loom near, nostrils flaring as she fought for breath, for strength.  "Please don't.  I'll do anything—"

"Yes." Pasty, white, and moist, the clone nodded, calmly caressing the writhing symbiote he held aloft. "Yes, you will."


	19. Conflagration

**_Taken_ **

****

****

**_Conflagration_ **

 

"Brother." The Ba'al clone stood impassively at the foot of the sarcophagus, his hands bracketed at his waist. "Come now. I see no real benefit in this tactic."

"You know as well as I that there is no other way." His voice contained an edgy quality that Glinda immediately recognized as characteristic of the species. Symbiote squirming in his hand, the other Goa'uld positioned himself directly behind the Colonel.  He raised his free hand to her nape, smoothing away stray strands of honey-gold hair.  "Stand still, Colonel.  This will cause so much less pain if you cooperate."

His fingers skimmed the back of her neck, and she flailed at the touch, thrashing within the grasp of her captors, her cries low, gutteral, and raw. But their large hands slammed her back against the steel doors, holding her still.  That the slight bulge of her pregnancy protruded just above the desk made their pose seem even more wrong—even more appalling.

Glinda could see the clone raise the snake, watching in abject horror when it seemed to expand, its mouth gaping as it perused the pale skin near the base of Sam's skull.  It hissed, jerking within the Goa'uld's grasp, and thrust its head further forward, its tongue licking at the area exposed by the Goa'uld's fingers.

"No!" But the protest, rendered tinny by the metal of the cabinet door, was roundly ignored.  Sam bucked again, trying to turn.  It glared painfully obvious that she was too outnumbered—too reined in by the heavy hands on her arms and the bodies fencing in her legs. "Ba'al—please."

"Are you prepared to host a God?"  He pushed the symbiote closer, his smile near-maniacal, his tone sing-song, childlike, and disturbed.

But the Colonel somehow managed to twist herself away anew, and as the Goa'uld stepped clear of the tumult, the guards grappled with her, trying to secure her again into the proper position.

Glinda looked about wildly—searching through the jungle of shelving partitions and supports across the corridor for something— _anything_ —that would be useful.  But there were only books—binders and notebooks, and a few markers and pencils. And although at one point in her life she'd subscribed to the notion that the pen was mightier than the sword, she hardly believed that throwing writing implements across the room would solve anything in this particular circumstance.

She'd recognized Jenkins, Carl, and Barry as the men who grappled with the Colonel.  From where she crouched on the floor she could also see the dark-head of the Ba'al clone, and the balding pate of the Doctor Lee Goa'uld.  Counting mentally, she figured that left three unknowns—Phil, the still unnamed Growly, and Whiny Dave.  And the real Doctor Lee had to be around somewhere.

And of course, the General and Daniel, and the unknown quantity that was _their_ Ba'al.

Where were they?  She searched, up and around, then crawled awkwardly on three limbs into the corridor, her meat tenderizer held at the ready as she skittered across the threshold of the stall and out onto the smooth wood of the barn itself. 

A faint thud off to the right had her leaning back to peer into the passageway around the corner, but she could see nothing pertinent—shadows, perhaps, if she strained—but nothing obviously the source of the noise.

Another rough moan from the Colonel forced Glinda's attention back to the far side of the laboratory, where Jenkins had body-checked Sam back into submission. The Goa'uld Doctor Lee took another step closer.

"Brother." The cloned Ba'al's voice rose across the laboratory's expanse, calm, almost bored.  He sat on an office chair lazily, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee. "Trying to implant the symbiote while she still struggles might cause it harm.  Perhaps we should secure her using something more reliable than these humans."

"It will only take a moment."  Stopping, Doctor Lee's clone turned his attention towards the other alien. His pasty face radiated excitement. "Just a moment."

"You delay too long.  I grow impatient." Standing, he crossed to the dais that held the sarcophagus, running a hand along its length. "Either implant the symbiote or do not.  Stop salivating at the prospect.  It exposes you as the weakling you are."

"Hold her!"  Cheeks ruddy, the Goa'uld let out a growl that spurred Jenkins to give another sharp jerk at the Colonel's braid. 

"She's ready, sir."

Glinda looked down, tearing her eyes away from the atrocity about to take place. Wood floor—steel legs—papers and books stacked the shelf in front of her, and cords—everywhere electrical wiring— and nothing else.  _Nothing_!  She looked up. The Goa'uld had neared Sam again—his hands reaching out as the symbiote flailed its head and tail.

"We've got her, sir."  Jenkins spoke—his voice gritty with frustration.  "Do it now, if you're going to do it at all."

Frantic, Glinda searched between the fixtures for sign of the General, Daniel, or the other Goa'uld.  She heard Sam cry out—heard her plead—and then heard the hissing begin again, saw the Doctor Lee clone's eyes heavy, half-lidded, as he placed the parasite to her skin.

Glinda didn't think—she couldn't.  Blind reaction ruled her as she raised her arm and brought the meat tenderizer down on the steel support of a shelf.  The recoil of the blow sent her floundering backwards, the reverberations exaggerated in the close quarters of the corridor.  Landing hard against the wall behind her, Glinda stood stock still, breathing shallowly, the kitchen utensil held before her like Excalibur.

The Doctor Lee twin whirled towards the noise, his face reddened, his eyes wild.  As the sound faded, he growled, his nostrils flaring wide.  "What was that?"

Jenkins spoke without releasing his grip on the Colonel. "How should I know?"

Ba'al reached into a shallow storage cubby and withdrew a zat gun. Fingering it open, he turned, scanning the room, his sharp gaze seeming to penetrate the shelving and the corridor beyond.  "Show yourself!" He took a step closer to the dais, turning in a slow circle.  "I command you to make yourself known!"

But doing anything at all seemed quite beyond Glinda—she could merely stand, digging her bare toes into the wood grain of the flooring, forcing herself to keep breathing.  The handle of her weapon felt warm, and hard, and comforting, and she gripped it even more tightly as if she could transfer some of its steel into her own spine.

"Phil—go find whatever that was."  This from Ba'al—his voice indolent, nearly bored.  "Don't bother bringing it back—just dispose of it."

A sound of assent, a rustling noise, and then the large, cumbersome body of the guard arose from where he'd been lounging in a corner of the laboratory. Glinda heard him rather than saw him—boots on the wood, the rough _shush_ of jeans and flannel.  She heard a series of hard _clacks_ , and knew that he'd readied a weapon of some sort.

"Come on, Fitch."

"Why me?"  _Growly_.  His voice seemed to come from further away.

Glinda tried to shrink into the wall, pulling her limbs in towards herself.

"Just go!"  The Bill clone's voice thundered.

Glinda flinched, glancing wildly first to one side and then the other, searching through the steel cage for a hint of which way Phil and Fitch would go first.  So that she would know which way to run.

Their footsteps sounding as sullen as had their voices, they trudged towards the opening between cabinets, and Glinda took several steps to her right, her entire being prepared to flee.  She saw them disappear between two large units, saw their shadows on the wide, double doors at the front of the barn to her right.  Turning to flee, she stopped short at the sight of a brace of shadows coming around the opposite way.  Trapped, with only the meat tenderizer clutched in her trembling hands, she could do nothing but wait.

Phil turned the corner and moved down that side of the corridor. He held a handgun before him, steadied with one hand cupped under the other.  Fitch followed closely behind, quickly drawing abreast of his comrade. Glinda scuttled further sideways, splitting her attention between the dubious shadows to her right and the known entities coming down from the corridor on her left.

Precisely nowhere remained for her to flee.  Her make-shift weapon faltered a bit, even as she grappled with her courage. She firmed her chin, and straightened her shoulders.  Summoning up her dignity, she struggled not to release the pitiful whimper that had trapped itself in her throat.  Her green eyes shone bright, excited, and terrified, her breath coming in little inadequate pants.

Fitch came to the corner first, peering sideways, instantly recognizing her. With a finger, he raised the head of his zat, his eyes widening even as his mouth spread into a coarse grin. "Well, what do we have here? It's nothing but that pain-in-the-butt old lady.  Stand real still, honey, and we'll make it quick."

"I'll do it."  Phil drew a bead, his face behind the bandages ecstatic.  "I owe her one, anyway."  He lowered his weapon, aiming it directly at her heart. 

It would be fast—Glinda wanted to close her eyes, but couldn't bring herself to demonstrate such cowardice.  Her focus was drawn instead to Phil's thick finger, to where the skin on his knuckle stretched as the digit tightened on the trigger. He exhaled, and smiled as he squeezed—she could see a fine sheen of spittle on his lower lip and vaguely thought it fitting that a man of his questionable caliber would drool—

A loud _pop_ filled the corridor, but she didn't feel pain.  She dumbly glanced downward, to her grimy, torn, and bedraggled blouse, but no bullet hole marred the fabric, no blood seeped between the buttons. Heart beating in its frenetic rhythm, he looked back up at the guard, and gasped as she watched Phil heave forward and then fall, eerily—slowly—his mouth frozen into a small "o", his eyes wide—unseeing.

Fitch turned swiftly, an impulsive move of his finger firing the zat wildly. The blue beam caught a steel bar on a shelf and ricocheted uselessly away.  Glinda watched his body twist, saw him make a decision. And then, faster than she'd imagined possible, Growly pivoted in the close space and aimed the zat in the direction from which the gunshot had originated.

She heard a gruff shout—not from Fitch, but from further away—and the shuffle of quick feet.  And then Fitch's roar of anger as he braced to fire the alien beam again. And Glinda knew that whomever—Daniel? The General?—was at the other end of that corridor was the new target.  She considered her options for a beat, and then took three giant steps forward, swinging the kitchen implement high—hoping to buy at least a little time for what she desperately hoped was one of the good guys.

Even as experienced as she was for the feel and noise of crunching bone, it still sickened her.  The head of her weapon hit Fitch on the back of the skull, right above his neck, and he plummeted to the wood floor of the barn without another sound.

She felt a rough hand grasp her arm, and turned, automatically lashing out again with her weapon.  But a strong hand caught the mallet and stopped its wild motion, lowering it, and then twisting it out of her grip.  Frantic, Glinda surged to retrieve it, but found herself engulfed by the newcomer instead, her movements stilled by a solid body, a voice familiar in her ear.

"Pinky!" The whisper seemed huge in the close confines of the corridor, known and wonderful.  "Glinda.  It's me."

She stilled, forcing herself to focus on him.  The General relaxed slightly, holding her tightly with one hand while gripping his Winchester with the other.  Gradually, he released her, his dark, fierce eyes searching hers as he reached to the side and deposited the meat tenderizer on a shelf.  One of his brows ticked upwards, and she somehow understood him—knew what he asked of her. 

 _Calm_.  She clung to the notion of composure, willing it to override fear, and hatred, and disgust.

Glinda took a deep breath, then looked behind her, across the fallen forms of the two men to where Daniel stood on the far end of the corridor, his Glock glinting ebony in the diffused sunlight.  The archaeologist nodded at the General, and O'Neill moved ahead, shouldering past her, stepping unfazed over the bodies on the floor as he moved past the outer perimeter. 

Trailing him, she paused as a glint of odd bluish-gray caught her eye, and she bent automatically to retrieve the object from where it lay partially beneath a cabinet.  She stood, feeling Daniel's focus on her, and held up the zat gun, ridiculously pleased when he smiled, raising his brows in an approving salute.

"Phil? Fitch?  What's going on?"  Jenkins called out, his enunciation clipped, terse. 

In the corridor, O'Neill threw a concise string of hand signals towards Daniel, who turned smartly and disappeared down the far passageway. The General held the shotgun loose against his body as he advanced cautiously to the opening in the cabinetry that led into the inner sanctum of the lab.

"Phil—Fitch. Dammit.  Answer me!"

"I'm afraid they're unavailable at this time."  From the other side of the barn, Daniel's tone sounded conversational, casual, as if he were recording a new outgoing salutation on his answering machine.  "You can leave a message, but I'm fairly certain they won't call back."

"Who are you?"  This wasn't Jenkins—the cloned Doctor Lee spoke now, the timbre of his voice changing into the odd, recognizable resonance common to his species.

"Um—you first."  Daniel sounded further away—he was on the move.  Buying time.

Glinda could hear people shuttling back and forth inside the lab, and the distinct sound of a gun being cocked echoed in the cavernous room. A shout, a scuffle, and then a thud—a body hitting a hard surface?  Snarled orders, and then a screech—serpentine—alien—furious.

And another moan—feminine, and pained.  Glinda's eyelids flitted shut, even as her stomach recoiled.

"O'Neill!" Louder, this tone sounded more human—more amused than angry.  "We don't want to hurt anyone.  We only want this device finished.  And your beloved is being spectacularly stubborn about it."

"That's because she can't do it."  The General had stopped behind a cupboard unit at the lab's point of entry. Raising his shotgun, he butted the weapon to his shoulder and sighted between the unit and a bank of shelves, stepping infinitesimally closer to the inner sanctum of the lab. Even from her position behind him, Glinda could see his jaw clench, and then relax.  She watched as his finger tightened on the trigger.

"You lie."  Ba'al again—more urgent this time.  "It is fortunate that my brother has a way of circumventing that issue."

"Don't do it, Ba'al."  Low, intense, the General's words carried deadly intent in them.

In the lab, the Ba'al clone choked out a laugh.  "I would love to hear you beg again, General. Only first hand, this time, instead of only in my memory."

"Keep wishing."  The General bent and peered through the shelving, scanning the interior before standing upright again.  Taking a step away from the units, he motioned for Glinda to stay put before butting his weapon to his shoulder and sighting down the barrel.  "You and I both know that's not going to happen."

"You would plead for the life of your wife, would you not?"

O'Neill didn't answer, he merely refit his finger to the trigger, his lips thinned.

"Just as you would beg for the life of your child." The cloned Doctor Lee, again, this time, mania thick in his lilting, sing-song cadence. "This child with your genes. The Ancient genes. So many possibilities. And just an implantation away."

"Let her go, Ba'al—both of you.  You know you won't get out of here alive."

"You are outnumbered, General."  The Ba'al clone smiled, hands outspread, his face impassive. "Our men surround this laboratory."

"Yes, well."  The General didn't smile back—his lips were hard, and colorless.  "You keep thinking those happy thoughts, if it makes you feel better."

"Phil and Fitch?"  Jenkins spat the names.  "You killed them?"

"Believe what you want."  The Winchester gleamed as he shifted behind the cabinet.

"There is only one of you."  Doctor Lee's twin gestured with the hand holding the symbiote.

"Two."  Ba'al corrected his brother. "I heard Daniel Jackson, as well. Three if you count the old woman."

"So? What's your point?"

"So, you see we are at an impasse."  One dark, well-groomed brow rose as he waved a hand around the lab. "You cannot shoot all of us at once, and certainly not before my brother can accomplish his wish to—shall we say—expand our family."

As if on cue, the snake hissed.

“Are you growing impatient, my brother?"  Between the books, Glinda watched as the stout Goa'uld held the creature up, gazing affectionately at its thrashing form. "The first host is the most memorable."

Glinda crouched low and peered through steel support poles of a cabinet. In the lab, the alien Doctor Lee and Barry stood in an odd tableau, the Colonel at their feet. Her hands had been secured behind her somehow—Glinda suspected more of those confounded zip ties. And pressed to her temple, looming obscene and malevolent, Barry held a pistol. 

And still squirming in the pudgy Goa'uld's grasp, the symbiote strained towards the woman below, its tongue undulating within its gaping mouth .

The other clone stood on the other side of the dais, zat in hand, an odd smile on his face.  To the Goa'uld's right, his hands zipped tightly before him, knelt the real Doctor Lee.

The sweaty, wan version of the Doctor stepped forward, his eyes fastened on the soft, white flesh of the Colonel's throat.  His thick lips curling upward in cruel bliss, he extended his arm, and the snake widened its mouth anew—its fangs glistening in the bright light from above. 

And as if on cue, O'Neill acted.  Moving quickly—with an efficient kind of grace that surprised his secretary—he stepped from the corridor into the lab.  Every motion concise, precise, he strode with a determined sort of impatience that Glinda hardly recognized.  She'd read about this side of him—known it existed, but had discounted it, in a way, as being too long ago, too far removed from his position at the Pentagon.

But this was more natural for him—far more so than the meetings and the suits and the memos.  Action—pure action—purposeful action—he breathed it as she breathed order and organization. It flowed through his blood as a nutrient for the man he was.

"If I were you all, I would step away from the lady." Supernaturally serene, O'Neill's voice sounded slightly disembodied—even, and distinct. Dangerous.  Glinda watched as a peculiar tranquility settled over him, and despite the fact that she knew the man, found that her body trembled. "And put that snake somewhere else."

"You are in no position to make demands."

"Oh. But I am."

Glinda drew in a quick breath as the Colonel looked up—her face abused, her hair a painful-looking snarl at her nape, dried blood on her lip and temple. But those azure eyes—clear and intent—radiated fury rather than pain.  Resolve rather than despair.  Sam searched her husband's face briefly before lowering her head again, and her body's subtle shift told Glinda that something had passed between them—some understanding that needed no words.

The balding clone growled and thrust the symbiote downward, towards the Colonel's neck.  With a sharp grunt, Sam flung herself to her side, knocking the pistol out of the guard's grip. Spinning on her hip, she thrust upward with her bound feet, catching Barry fully in his groin. He collapsed into a heap, his body stiffening in pain, and Sam spun around again, her heels catching him in his throat. His body skidded into a shelf, colliding hard, and falling still.

The Goa'uld screamed, his arm twisting upwards in an obvious effort to protect the symbiote.

A familiar _chuck_ filled the air, followed by a deafening roar.  Glinda flinched, gasping, yanking her attention from the Colonel just in time to see the Goa'uld's hand disappear in a haze of red, his body thrown backwards into a steel shelving unit.

The cloned Doctor Lee screamed, clutching his mangled arm, his face mottled with his own blood, and a pale bluish tinge that had to have burst out of the decimated symbiote.  The General hesitated only a beat before firing again, and the mutiliated alien fell to the ground, silent.

"Carter! Get out of there!"

"I'm trying!"  And only then did Glinda notice the Colonel, struggling to rise.  Off-center anyway, her body wouldn't cooperate. She could only push herself out of the fray, and even then the progress was slow.

"Daniel!"

"A little busy, Jack!"

"Get un-busy!"  He shifted his focus to the other Goa'uld, to the zat being raised in his direction.

Glinda could hear sounds of a struggle further away—outside of the laboratory—men grunting—the exchange of blows.  And then a single gunshot.  She looked around, feeling slightly hysterical, and completely useless.

Barry lay still on the floor, immobile.  Sam still struggled to rise, and had managed to push herself out of the main area, her feet making a glistening trail in the muck that spattered the floor.

The other Goa'uld raised his zat, aiming at the General. He fired, and missed, and then dodged when O'Neill turned the Winchester in his direction.  The General cocked his shotgun again, and leveled it. The barrel steadied, and Glinda saw his jaw tighten, saw tendons and bones in the back of his hand work as he prepared to fire.

She looked away—not knowing why—feeling too cowardly to watch the other Goa'uld die, perhaps.  She'd seen death, but not through such violence.  And it was too much—too close, too fierce, too deserved, too sure.  And there she crouched, in the corridor, doing nothing but watch—feeling hopelessly old and cowardly.

Drawing herself upright, she took a step backward, only to stop as she felt something press into the space between her shoulder blades. Hard, cylindrical, she knew what it was even before the voice rose from behind her.

"I've got her, boss!"

Glinda's eyes closed, and her shoulders drooped, even as her heart thudded to a halt. 

Jenkins.

"Bring her to me."  Glinda could hear triumph in the Goa'uld's tone.  "Shoot me, General O'Neill, and you kill your secretary, too."

The guard grabbed her shoulder and manhandled her around to face him. She tried to move the hand holding the zat to her back, intent upon hiding the weapon, but Jenkins caught the movement and reached out, his pistol still pointing at her chest, and wrested the alien gun from her grip.  He snorted as he glanced at it, then shoved it into the front of his pants. "And you looked like such a nice little old lady."

Narrowing her eyes at the hooligan, Glinda squared her chin. "Give me your gun, and I'll show you how nice I can be."

Jenkins grinned, and then shoved her back around and through the opening into the laboratory.

It was a standoff. 

The General stood with his weapon trained on the Ba'al clone, the Colonel still lay prone on the floor.  Barry slouched, still unconscious, only a few feet away from the mangled corpse of the alien form of Doctor Lee.  The remaining Ba'al stood, his zat pointed at Sam.

Jenkins stopped Glinda just behind the General.  Gun still pointed at her, he withdrew the zat and opened it, then lowered it to aim at the Colonel.  "Which one goes first, boss?"

"The old one."

Glinda felt Jenkins' shrug rather than saw it.  "Your call."

"So you see, General.  You have done me a favor, here."

O'Neill didn't speak, and Glinda couldn't see as much as a hair on him flicker.

Ba'al moved forward, running his tongue along his lips. "You have rid me of some rather excess baggage.  I must remember to thank you before you die."

But O'Neill focused on the Goa'uld's motions rather than his words. "Stop walking, Ba'al."

"You are surrounded.  Your wife is useless, Doctor Lee has been contained, and Jenkins has your secretary. Who else do you believe will come and save you?"  His arrogant shrug accompanied a face that exuded victory.  "Surely not the archaeologist?"

"Shut up, Ba'al."

"Or what?  You'll shoot me with your gun?"

"Something like that."

"But you won't be able to save your wife.  Jenkins has her quite in his sights.  Kill me, and you kill her."

Glinda scanned the scene, her spirit bleak.  The Colonel had stopped straining against her bonds, and lay still, perhaps conserving her strength.  Doctor Lee couldn't seem to keep his eyes off his twin—dead in the far corner. Even if he weren't completely obsessed with the sight, his bound hands and feet would render him more incapable than the Colonel.  And Daniel—Glinda couldn't hold out hope there.  She'd heard the gun shot—knew that the casualty could as easily have been Daniel as it could have been the villain.

Just because you were the good guy didn't mean that you could always save the day.

She turned a more critical eye towards the group—and realized that _she_ was the one unknown factor. She remained unbound and able to move. The Colonel had been disabled—her abilities too familiar to allow her freedom.  Doctor Lee, bound as he was, had obviously at one point posed a threat, and had been neutralized.  The General now stood in the center of a quandary—and there were two more men out there—Carl, and Whiny Dave. 

A shadow passed on the outside of the far bank of shelves, and Glinda strained to make it out, but couldn't.  She glared sideways at Jenkins, and then looked back at the shadow as it progressed along the corridor, and stopped at the entrance opposite the one through which she'd just entered.

She lowered her head and watched through her eyelashes as the figure leaned forward just enough to peek into the room.  And then she felt her heart leap as she recognized Daniel.

If the General had seen him, he didn't indicate it. The Winchester never wavered from its aim—his finger never shifted from the trigger.  His entire concentration remained on the Goa'uld.

Ba'al, however, took another step towards the sarcophagus. "And so you see, O'Neill. You cannot win this."

"Try me."

Glinda watched as Daniel stepped closer to the entry way. Saw him stop and take in the scene, then frown.  Too many variables. Too much possibility for disaster. But to do nothing—the bile rose in the back of Glinda's throat.

She watched as Daniel edged ever closer, his gun held low. From her position on the far side of the guard, she could see the General's friend.  She doubted that Jenkins could.  And if he could, he'd indicated nothing.

And that little kick happened again—that tiny bit of excitement that came in situations like these.  Like the sudden rush that accompanied the stopping of one's car just in time—the surge that came with seeing the spider before stepping on it. She felt her blood start to pulse as she contemplated action—rifling through, and then sorting various scenarios in her head. 

"Try you?  Oh, I will." Ba'al smoothed down his beard again. "Perhaps I will recreate a certain room just for you.  With a table full of vials and knives.  Will that try you enough?"

Daniel, looking through the shelving, caught Glinda's eye. With a deliberate nod to her, he indicated the guard.  Glinda glanced at Jenkins, at his inadequate stance—at his attention, divided as it was between herself and the Colonel.  Shifting slightly, she put herself into position, achieving the proper balance, reviewing in her mind the words of the instructor.

With a slight nod, Daniel raised his gun, stepping into the lab even as he fired low, his bullet sinking into the Goa'uld's thigh.

Ba'al roared, swiveling around, finding Daniel even as he repositioned the zat. Seeing her opportunity, Glinda stepped backwards slightly, balancing herself on her right leg, while thrusting up and out with her left in the one and only kick she'd ever felt competent delivering during all those karate classes at the senior center.

The sole of her foot impacted solidly with Jenkins' knee, and he crumpled sideways, losing hold of the gun in his surprise.  It skittered across the floor, towards the Colonel, and Glinda prayed that Sam could recover it.

Behind her, she heard the ominous _schucking_ sound of the General racking another round just before simultaneous explosions filled the close space.

Glinda wanted to turn—wanted to see if the threat had been vanquished, but instead could only watch in a fascinated kind of dread as Jenkins righted himself. Swinging his left hand around, the alien weapon malevolent in his grip, he found her again. Resetting her feet, she posed to strike once more, but his zat blast found Glinda first, and she was engulfed in the blue stream of eerie light.

She felt strangely bouyant for a second—as if every fiber of her form were on fire.  Pain and shock radiated around her, and she felt her mind numbing—her vision clouding from the outside in.  Jenkins' face hovered over hers—as if in slow motion—his furied eyes narrowing as his mouth widened in a shout she couldn't hear.

And through the blackness that claimed her, she found herself staring into the evil little head of the alien weapon, Jenkins' finger caressing the trigger just beyond. 

Then the finger on that trigger wrenched again, and, as the second wave of blue energy surrounded her, Glinda gave herself to the void.


	20. Light

****

**_Taken_ **

****

**_Light_ **

 

_She'd dreamed of her mother.  Odd, since she hardly remembered exactly what Mama had looked like.  Her memories included a pale woman with dank hair and a false smile. And a constant smell of hopelessness. The scent of despair._

_She hadn't known what to expect after her senses had failed.  Had only known that she was no longer whole, somehow. And so she'd waited for something momentous to happen—or even something mundane.  She'd heard stories of out-of-body flights—tunnels and lights—angels and demons.  Instead, she'd languished for long, unsettling moments in vast silences and blank nothingness. She'd waited—setting in. But instead, after the darkness had waned, she'd had visions—vivid, tangible, and real.  And so very, very exquisite._

_She'd dreamt like that before—but in those nighttime jaunts, she'd been a child, climbing with painful care up onto her mother's sickbed, one knee and then the other, hands braced so as not to jostle the patient.  Settling gently with her own child-like hip pressing against the thin one under the threadbare quilt.  In those dreams, she had smoothed back her mother's hair and sung her silly songs she'd learned in school or in church, and then—each and every time—her mother's eyes had closed and Glinda had listened to the final rattling breaths and bid her goodbye._

_Sometimes, she could feel the frail bones in her mother's hand long after she'd awoken—as if she had truly just been holding her mother's palm in her own, fingers entwined, skin to skin._

_But this dream was more._

_She'd succumbed to the blackness, felt her body give out.  Just before she'd given up hope of something else, she'd blossomed, somehow. To say she'd seen a light and flown toward it would have been too simple.  It had been a rising, a release, and a revelation all at once. Beautiful—to be let go, to be able to let go—and then such freedom.  There had been a light, a pinpoint through a welcoming darkness, and she had made the conscious effort to turn towards it._

_She'd known it would be the right choice.  How she'd known this was unattainable.  The certain knowledge had cascaded over her that answers would be found within its glow. It had merely beckoned her with such golden sincerity, and Glinda had been so cold.  She'd needed the warmth.  Yearned for it.  And obedient to its call, she'd moved without hesitation.  Without regret._

_How? She didn't know. Unfettered by her body, her soul had just risen.  It didn't occur to her to mourn, or sorrow—she'd accepted it.  Her progression had been beautifully simple._

_And at the end there had been a woman.  Whole—without the pallor that had defined her during those last days in her farmhouse bed. Her eyes alive with joy—and peace—and a poignant sort of tenderness that Glinda felt she'd never fully understand. And her voice—vibrant, melodic, luminous._

_"You don't belong here, Glinda."_

_"Why not, Mama?"  And Glinda had wondered why it felt so natural to use the childhood appellation. "Where do I belong, if not with you?"_

_But her mother had only smiled—sad, haunted.  And the hand on Glinda's face had felt corporeal, even though it wasn't, as had the arms that had held her close.  She'd remembered that feeling.  Unconditional love. Before the sickness had robbed their family of all vestige of life._

_"Go home. You're needed there." Her mother had set her away, palms warm on Glinda's arm.  Tilting her head, she'd nodded slightly—her teeth worrying at her bottom lip._

_"Go home Glinda. They need you."_

_"Go home."_

_"Go home."_

_"Go."_

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

_Like water, blue, but then not._

Light.

Light, and a sensation of complete warmth that seemed weirdly at odds with the glow. Such a blue should be cool, not heated. Glinda scowled on a memory that she couldn't hold—something having to do with a dock, and a farm and a hazy summer day and a pond.  Ducks. There had been ducks.

Happiness. Happiness so completely fused with sorrow that she couldn't tell where one emotion ended and the other began. And she caught the meaning without searching for it—knew that if sadness wasn't evident in her life, then neither would be joy.  That melancholy existed as a foil for elation.  That the blueness of the air around her existed for something else—something unattainable—immortal—effervescent. Twice, now, the charged electric-blue beam had changed her life.  She reached to pinpoint in what way—

But the memory faded before she could place it.  And she wasn't entirely certain if the past it contained had belonged to her or to the phantom in her dream.  That woman who had gently pushed her away again.  The mother she'd never properly known.

She'd cracked open her eyes as an experiment, just to prove that she could. And immediately, Glinda had been struck by the radiance.  It had taken a supreme effort for her to place other senses—the warmth, the distant hum of some sort of engine she'd never heard before—and then the other sounds.

_"Kansas?"_

_"I know—how weird is that?"_

_"My secretary is a farm girl from Kansas.  And her name is Glinda?"_

_A feminine laugh—and then a muffled moan—sweet, somehow, instead of passionate or pained. "You can't make this stuff up."_

_"I'm sure someone could, but then I would doubt their sanity."_

Glinda opened her eyes wide.  She lay flat—on her back—the blue light flitting around her in a gentle mechanical strobe. Above her loomed an unfamiliar institutional-like ceiling—unremarkable fluorescent fixtures—and gleaming in her peripheral vision shimmered the silvery sheen of stainless steel. 

Without meaning to, she recognized it.  Knew what it meant. 

Her eyes fluttered closed again, and she tried, but found herself unable, to swallow the gasp that gathered near the back of her throat.

"Pinky?" A shuffle of shoes on the floor, and then the General's face appeared over the edge of the sarcophagus. His face relaxed into a cautious smile. "You okay?"

She assessed herself, and then nodded.  "I believe so, sir."

"Here." He extended an arm and clasped her forearm with his wide, strong hand, then levered her up. Pausing, he held her steady as she gathered her balance around her, and then helped her step over the side of and out of the box.  "We've been waiting for you."

Glinda frowned.  "Oh? Waiting to do what?"

"To move on.  To finish—things."

Glinda glanced over to where the Colonel sat on a chair next to the wall. She'd bathed—changed into military basics—obviously meant for someone much larger.  The black T-shirt tented itself across her belly, and she'd rolled the hems of the dark blue pants up twice.  Her hair gleamed as it spread— damp around the edges—across her shoulders. Still bruised, her face had been doctored.  A tiny butterfly bandage showed starkly white against her bruised cheek, and her lip glistened with what Glinda assumed to be ointment of some sort.  And her eyes—troubled, full.  Concerns roiled within their depths.

And yet, she looked strong, and steady, and content as she stood and crossed the room to stop next to her husband.  "How are you?"

Glinda thought about it before answering.  "Well, it appears that I've not been vanquished."

"No, you haven't."  Sam smiled. "Although it was close there for a while."

Glinda nodded, glancing behind her towards the large metallic box in the center of the steely floor.  Everything in the room seemed to be metallic.  Walls, fixtures, ceiling.  And the noise—droning, deep, and constant.

Like a 747, or a C-47.  But, as she looked around in what she hoped was shielded curiosity, she saw no windows. No sky.  If she had to guess—

_But surely not._

Gumption held firmly in hand, she opened her mouth on the inquiry. "Where exactly are we?"

General O'Neill's mouth twitched upwards a dram.  "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes." Glinda nodded. "I do."

He tilted his head and squinted slightly as he took a breath. "In orbit."

"In orbit.  Well, of course we are."  Glinda faltered, despite herself.  Why, after everything else that had happened to her, should that surprise her?  But it did.  "And _how_ , exactly?"

Her boss sucked in a breath between his teeth before glancing down at his wife and shrugging.  "There was beaming involved.  But not by Scotty, because that would be a cliche."

The Colonel rolled her eyes with a little smile.  "We're aboard the _George Hammond_.  Colonel Archibold was kind enough to bring us onboard utilizing an Asgard transportation apparatus that immediately dematerialized our corporeal forms and—"

"Sam." The General leaned sideways, nudging his wife with his shoulder.  "Does she really need to hear this?"

Colonel Carter paused, and even around the bruises, Glinda could see a faint blush tinge her face pink.  "She might like to know—"

"She doesn't."  O'Neill shook his head.  " _Really_ doesn't."

Glinda scowled.  "Perhaps _she_ does, sir."

But the General's expression brooked no argument.  "Shower.  Clean clothes. Infirmary.  And then some food—or whatever approximates that particular commodity on this heap.  And after that, if you're still desperate to know exactly how we came to be up here, you can ask. But let's take care of first things, first, shall we?"

And Glinda smiled at her boss, nodding.  "Yes, sir."

 

\----OOOOOOO----

 

The General had told her that she could take a few days off, but Glinda had graciously declined.  She supposed it was the farm girl in her—the old-schoolish portion of her psyche that persisted in believing that one could work one's way through strife.

And strife it had been.

Sitting on the cot in the _Hammond's_ infirmary, her hair a tight mess of wet curls that dripped on the military-issue clothing she'd been given, she'd been asked about any lingering effects of her ordeal.  It had surprised her to realize that she'd awoken feeling oddly refreshed. Even so, she acknowledged that it had been eerie to open one's eyes to a pool of blue light when the same vehicle had also taken her life from her.

And Glinda split no hairs about the fact that she had, indeed, been dead.

Two shots.  She'd been hit by both of them.

Daniel had shot Jenkins before he'd been able to do it a third time. She'd discovered while aboard the orbiting vessel that a third shot from the curious alien weapon would have rendered her situation rather frighteningly permanent.  But indeed, she had been— _what_? She hesitated, still unable to conjure the exact appropriate term for what had happened to her. Sleeping in God? Crossing over? Kicking the proverbial bucket?

Farms—wasn't there a saying about the purchasing of farmland?

The General had favored, "Pining for the Fjords", but Glinda still had not figured out quite what that particular euphemism meant. She had inquired, but he'd only muttered something about dead parrots and pythons before his wife had cast him a quelling sort of look and he had pressed his lips together on a smile. Jack O'Neill was, from time to time, a thoroughly ineffable fellow.

But still, she supposed that it must have been quite the hullaballoo.

Bodies everywhere—several still breathing, although wounded. Even more not moving, not breathing. Clones and humans—Fitch, and Phil, and Jenkins—all gone.

The survivors had been treated and were being held in the brig on board the huge vessel.  Whiny Dave had immediately cooperated with the questions and investigations, but the other survivors had clammed up.  Glinda still didn't know exactly what their fate would be.  The bodies of the dead had been left in the barn.

Glinda had chosen the coward's way out there—she simply hadn't thought much about that portion of the aftermath.  Stoically, she'd forced from her memory those she'd seen fall, lifeless. She hadn't once spared a moment's concern for the man that she herself had taken down.  Her part in his demise certainly had no bearing on the fact that almost immediately upon her return home, she had entered her kitchen and found her own meat tenderizer in its place in her orderly kitchen drawer. And it certainly counted for exactly nothing that, without a second thought, she'd carried it out to the recycle bin and tossed it in.

She had no use for animal protein so tough that pounding on it with steel mallets was necessary for consumption, anyway.  Sublimation sometimes proved to be its own reward. And, she had more room in the utensil drawer, now.  So, really, win-win.

The General's Ba'al had been trusted with guarding those of the goon squad that had been overpowered before the final, deadly showdown. And then, after Glinda had been—taken out?—killed?—mown down?—the Colonel and Doctor Lee had put their entire efforts into completing the work on the sarcophagus.  They'd had it up and running within minutes, and then Daniel and the General had lifted her in, and shut the lid.

Glinda herself had been more than slightly appalled to discover that the perniciously arrogant Goa'uld with the questionable grammar had been the means by which they had gotten the contraption working to capacity.  He'd brandished the paper on which the formula had been written as if it were a winning Powerball ticket, his self-satisfied smirk lifting the edge of his razor-thin mustache while his dark eyes gleamed.

From the instructions there, Colonel Carter had been able to readjust crystals and redistribute loads of some sort in order to bring the two technologies on line. To Ba'al's credit, he hadn't gloated. And to Glinda's, she'd collected herself enough to thank him after she'd discovered his part in her resurrection—knowing all the while that her words lacked true warmth. Amazingly, he'd been kind enough to not rub it in. 

She supposed that it was all part of his attempt at becoming more human—stuck as he was now on Earth.

The General had not been happy about that.  But those higher than he in the Pentagon food chain had denied the Goa'uld's request to take the newly completed sarcophagus to another planet to establish his new domain.  Ba'al would, however, be given a new identity and allowed to live as any other human on Earth—at least, any other human constantly being watched by the military. And, now that Ba'al had utilized its regenerative powers himself, the sarcophagus and attached Telchak device would be sent to Area 51 for storage and study.

To be honest, Glinda still did not know for certain what had been already been done and what still remained to be accomplished.  She'd watched the compound be destroyed from space—seen the beam as it had left the Hammond and streaked towards a point on the planet below. Her inquiries as to why such measures were deemed necessary had been met with stern grimaces and terse, blunt rebuffs.

Phrases such as "cover story" and "plausible deniability" floated around her, then.  And Colonel Carter had quietly explained that the cloning equipment and Goa'uld symbiotes still remaining in the barn had to be destroyed in order to assure that the problem would not resurface.  And, in the past, they had always had good luck with the excuses of meteor showers or gas explosions.

Glinda had been trying to make sense of it all. 

Without much success.

Because how did this sort of thing ever become normal? 

The question had been circling in her mind since her return home. Ever since she'd been cleared by the ship's medical officer and summarily beamed back down to Earth, flanked by the General and the Colonel.  They'd rematerialized in her parlor, with Daniel waiting just inside the front door, her destroyed purse on the table just to his left. 

And after gathering her promise to call if she needed anything, they had, quite reluctantly, left her alone in her home.

Where she'd floundered, if truth was to be told.  She'd showered again.  Dressed in her own clothes.  Watered her begonias. Made a pot of tea that she'd had no intention of consuming.  Poured it down the sink, and then made some more.

Finally, late that night, she'd found herself on the threshold of her sewing room, the moonlight spreading itself across her cutting table like icing. And there, gleaming silver and yellow, her old rotary cutter sat atop a freshly ironed fat quarter, just where she'd left it only a day or so before.

For a moment, she'd hesitated.  But she'd needed— _something_. Proactivity, perhaps, or simply a release of whatever had been pent up inside her.  And, propelled forward by the demons at her back, she'd lifted the cutter, flicking the blade open, and making a quick cut on the fabric. And then another. And one more—and still another—

Without thought or precision, she hacked at the material, hard, determined, the blade cutting deep furrows into the mat beneath.  She ignored the wetness trickling down her cheeks and chin, the rush in her head, her heart.  Each swipe of the blade excised something indefinable—something beyond classification. And only when the quarter yard of fabric had been reduced to little more than a random pile of threads and fluff did she stop.  Automatically, she pressed the locking mechanism to sheathe the blade, and then laid it down. Gathering up the mass of fibers in her hands, she turned and deposited it into her waste basket.

And for whatever reason, that had been enough.

And so she'd slept and awakened, and showered and dressed. During breakfast, she removed all the necessary items from her ruined purse and moved them back into an old favorite handbag.  Her car had been waiting in her garage—Daniel's work, she supposed.  She'd driven to the Pentagon and parked in her customary space in the vast lot, and entered the building, passing through security and walking down the long hallway to her office door.  The turning key had been soothing, somehow, and the click of the lock opening more than mildly satisfying.

The office seemed like home.  Desk, cabinets, chair, potted plants in their corners, green vinyl couch along its wall. The files she'd left in the center of her desk were slightly off kilter—as if someone had shuffled through them. In the back of her head, she could see the General performing just such an examination when he'd realized that she was late back from lunch.  When he'd been trying to discover where she'd gone.

Six steps from the door, she came to her desk.  After depositing her purse in the bottom desk drawer, she sat and reached for the files and took up where she'd left off, color coding the folders and attaching her neatly printed labels.  She scooted her chair over to the file drawers on the other side of her office and started opening drawers and inserting the new folders into the orderly rows of older ones.

Rolling the chair back over to her desk, she pulled her pad of paper to the center of the work surface and reached towards her phone, pushing the message retrieval key even as she selected a pencil from her wire-cage pencil holder. There were four—three for the General, which she dutifully recorded complete with date and time stamps, and one for her.

Jo Louise—her friend from down the hall, wondering where she'd gone after lunch and hoping all was well.

Glinda snorted.  _If only!_ Delete.

Making a mental note to walk down the hall and chat with her friend during her break, she then turned to fire up That Infernal Contraption in order to check her electronic mail.  Once she'd pressed the button on the tower, she sat back in her chair as the motor inside whirred to life.

Odd, how normal routine could bring one back to a sense of self.

The office lay close around her—quiet, and calm, and familiar. A quick look at the clock caused her to stand and cross to the coffee pot on the table on the far wall. Lifting the carafe off its warmer, Glinda turned towards the water dispenser, bending to fill the receptacle at the little red spigot.  Her actions were little more than habit.  Things she'd been doing throughout the 37 years she'd been working at the Pentagon.  Business. Organization.  Messages and answers.  Caring for her boss, taking care of his needs.

_Saving his wife from being taken over by aliens._

_Bashing villains on the head with kitchen gadgetry._

She stalled, and her hand shook itself off the lever, bringing the flow to a halt with a sputter of droplets.  With a stern _harrumph_ , Glinda brought herself back to the present and completed the process of making the General's coffee. Once it had begun to percolate, she sat herself back down at her desk and clicked open her inbox and began to prioritize the order in which to answer the messages she found.

Again, the office fell into silence.  Too quiet.  Her hands stilled again on the keyboard, and she stared down at them in frustration. Flexing her fingers outward, she stretched her hands, then started again, but still couldn't bring herself to shut the thoughts out of her head. 

_Memories. Fear.  Feelings.  Blue lights and gunfire._

The door behind her jostled open, and Glinda had never once felt so grateful for an interruption. Turning, she was surprised to see the Colonel enter, followed closely by General O'Neill.

Rising, Glinda found herself frowning.  "Sir.  Ma'am. You're here early."

The General shrugged.  "We had an earlier appointment.  Sam wanted to come with me to say hi."

Ruefully, the Colonel grinned and held up a hand.  "Hi."

The motion was just random enough that Glinda found herself smiling back. "What kind of appointment?"

"Well." The Colonel looked up at her husband, who was pulling off his jacket.  "We went to see my obstetrician."

"What did you tell him about your injuries?"

"Car accident."  Said so casually—she was obviously well versed in making up cover stories. "But he ran some tests and did an ultrasound, anyway."

Glinda rose, her hand rising to rest, flat-palmed, at her midsection. "Oh my.  Is everything—"

"Yes. Yes.  It's all okay."  Sam moved forwards, reaching into her pocket as she neared the desk. "I just wanted to come by and show you something."  She extended her hand, a diminutive square pinched in her fingers.

Glinda accepted it without pause.  It was another of those small, filmy photographs—only sepia toned, rather than grayscale.  And instead of a legume in profile, she saw a tiny face, one hand scrunched against a cheek. A baby.

She looked up, a strange heave making her feel balmy and vibrant inside. "Yours?"

"You said something—in that basement."  The General spoke as he hung his jacket on the tree. Turning, he smiled as he walked towards his wife.  "When you told me that Sam had felt the baby move."

Glinda tried to remember her exact words in that instance, but came up gloriously blank.  With a tiny shake of her head, she said, "I'm sorry—I don't—"

"You said, 'he'."  The General's hand found its way around his wife's back to rest on her hip. "How did you know our baby was a boy?"

Glinda bit her lip, trying to hide the smile that begged to be loosed. "I don't know, sir. Just a hunch."

"Well, it's a correct hunch.  I could show you the evidence, but Jack says it's creepy."  Sam rolled her eyes, her meaning clear.

"It is.  Poor little critter has no privacy in there.  And that ultra-whatever tech person was only too willing to take pictures of his whatchamadiddle."

"That whatchamadiddle has a very clinical, appropriate name."

"Which doesn't need to be bandied about."  The General frowned.  "There are protocols for this sort of thing.  She put an arrow pointing at it on the picture. Who does that?"

"So you're going to be one of _those_ parents?"

"What kind would that be?"

"The kind that never uses the anatomical term for body parts and functions, but instead insists on utilizing outdated nicknames that are confusing for the child?"  Her brows inched ever sky-ward.  "You know the kind. Their kids enter fifth grade still thinking they were found under a cabbage leaf."

"I'm just saying that there are inside words and outside words. Inside the doctor's office, and outside it."

"It's the same body part."

"Different circumstance—"

"Jack."

"Sam?"

"Whatever." Sam sighed, shaking her head with a playfully exasperated look at her spouse before turning back towards his secretary. "Anyway, we just wanted to bring that by and show you.  It's the kind of thing that you share with family."

Glinda ducked her head, then, to hide the pleasure she felt sure shone through her smile.

"Pinky?" His voice was gentle. "You okay?"

It took her too long to answer—she knew—but an amalgam of conflicting, difficult emotions seethed below a very thin veneer.  She found a modicum of control before raising her face again to meet the gazes of these two wonderful, dear people.  "Family?"

The General nodded, his eyes narrowing.  "Well, _yeah_."

And she stared down again at the little picture in her hand, and _knew_.  Knew that they were in earnest.  That somehow, she'd become more than just a secretary to them, just as they'd burrowed their way into her heart, as well.

A single silver curl bobbed over her left eyebrow as she nodded. "Well.  Thank you."

Some pointed communication passed silently between Sam and O'Neill, and the Colonel rounded the desk to stop at Glinda's side.  She was back in jeans, and a smart-looking blouse that showed off her tummy.  She looked well, and hale, and except for the bruising on her cheek, completely normal. And beside this vision of health, Glinda felt terribly ordinary—hopelessly plain. 

And then Glinda felt the other woman's hand give her arm a tiny squeeze.

"You know, I know that what happened to us was traumatic." Matter of fact, and yet gentle, Sam's voice flowed between them like honey.  "I know that you were forced to do some things that you must feel terrible about."

But Glinda couldn't speak.  The curl bobbed again in answer.

"And, we've been talking, and wanted to tell you that there are ways that we can help you with those memories."

Glinda looked up, meeting Sam's blue gaze with her own green one. "How?"

"There's a device that we came into possession of several years ago. It has the ability to take away memories and replace them with other ones.  You'd simply forget that any of this happened."

Her knees weakened, and Glinda found herself lowering her body into her chair. What a blessing that might be—to not see those images whenever she closed her eyes, to not feel that fear, that worry, that anger.  To be free of the terror.

But then her mind returned to the basement of the farmhouse, and standing in a precarious shadow holding an ugly lamp.  She'd felt strong, and vital, and capable. She'd become something she'd always yearned to be—someone who _acted_ rather than being acted upon.  In all her sixty-seven years, she'd never managed to accomplish that—never felt as if she were engaged in her own destiny.  Everything had always happened _to_ her instead of _because of_ her.

And if she erased the memories, she would lose that. Lose the budding friendship with this lovely, talented woman, lose the new sense of self that she'd achieved in those woods, and in that barn.  Throw away the knowledge she'd gained about herself—things she'd learned that she could do, could be.

_No._

Not for all the world.  She couldn't conceive of such a tragedy as to lose all that she had found during the most difficult, and the most enlightening, day of her entire life.

"No." Standing, Glinda shook her head with a tiny smile.  "No. But thank you. I'll be just fine." And all of a sudden, with a start, she knew that she would be.

The Colonel pulled her close in a tight, impulsive hug, and Glinda returned it with earnest.  Brief, yet meaningful—and then she pulled away and took a step backward.  "Well, then, Glinda.  I'll be in touch.  We'd like to take you out to dinner this week some time—the two of us and Daniel and his wife. And I still owe you a case of those rotary cutters.  And thank you so much. Without you—well—it wouldn't have ended well."

Glinda smiled and nodded before casting a look at her boss. His face was open, and satisfied, and content as he snared his wife on her way to the door for a lingering kiss and a familiar, one-armed hug.  And then, with one last look behind her, the Colonel breezed out the door, her strong strides echoing down the hall.

"She's wonderful."  Glinda couldn't help herself.  The words had tumbled out of her mouth before she'd even realized she'd uttered them.

"She is."  The General drew himself upright a sighed, then stepped past the desk and towards his own door. "Well, back to work."

"I've left your messages on your desk, and forwarded you several e-mails." Settling back onto her chair, she turned her head to follow his progress towards his office.

"Did you get the new budget requests?"

"Yes, sir.  And already sent in the preliminary data."

"Thanks."

"And I'll bring in your coffee in a few minutes."

With a nod, O'Neill opened his door and stepped across the threshold of his office, only to poke his head out a moment later.  "Pinky?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Check your top drawer.  I left something there for you."

And then his door clicked shut.

Glinda hesitated, staring at the door before turning back towards her desk. With a peek over her shoulder, she fit her fingers under the lip on the bottom of the drawer and pulled.

There, atop the neatly organized divided compartments of pencils, staples, and pens, rested a wide, flat box.  Velvet, and black, with a gold rim.  Like the box she'd been given at the jeweler's when she'd bought her graduation pearls.

Her fingers skimmed the soft surface before grasping it, and slowly she drew it out and laid it on the desk in front of her.  With tentative fingers, she lifted the lid, and then stopped, stunned. 

Within were twin gold stars, neatly pinned onto a velvet card nestled in the box. General's stars. And from the fact that they were slightly worn, their points dulled somewhat, she knew that they'd been O'Neill's. And below the stars, a patch. New, stiff, pristine. Gray embroidery on a black background—a stylized 'V' with a '1' superimposed in the center. And on the top, at the apex of an arch, the letters, 'SG'.  She recognized it immediately.  'SG-1'. His team.  Their team.  And now, seemingly, hers.

She closed her eyes and allowed it to engulf her—this keen sense of belonging.

Glinda didn't know how long she sat there, her fingers lightly touching the patch, the stars.  But the smell of coffee eventually intruded on her reverie, and she closed the box with a tiny snap before standing and making her way across the office to the pot.

Cream, sugar—just a touch.  She stirred with a slim red straw as she walked to the General's door. Knocking quietly, she turned the knob and let herself in, stepping between the twin chairs to stop at his desk. He looked up from a catalog of some sort, brows high.

"Coffee, General O'Neill."  She leaned forward and set it just to his right.  "And thank you, sir.  So much."

He smiled and reached for his cup, watching her as she pivoted for his door. She'd just reached the threshold when he called her name, and she turned to face him.

"Sir?"

"You earned them."

And Glinda nodded, considering.  "I did." More a revelation to herself than to him.

And then she closed the door quietly behind her and returned to her seat. With efficient, quick hands, she tucked the box back into her top drawer, sliding the tray home as she scooted her chair closer to her workspace.

The icon on her e-mail was blinking, as was the little light on her phone. She'd missed a call, somehow. And that request for bids on the new module designs wasn't going to write itself. 

But first—she searched on her desk and found the little sepia-toned ultrasound picture.  Deliberately, she flattened out a crinkled corner and then slid it under the glass blotter on her desk top to protect it from getting ruined. 

She'd go out at lunch and buy a frame for it. 

And maybe, if she was feeling peckish, she'd stop and get herself a big salad.

 

 


End file.
